


Conceal Me What I Am

by Killtheselights, TheLadyoftheHouse



Series: Conceal Me What I Am [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Ballroom Dancing, Canto Bight, F/M, False Identity, Force Bond (Star Wars), Lightsaber Battles, Minor Leia Organa/Han Solo, Parents Han and Leia, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, References to Shakespeare, Romance, Romantic Angst, Star Wars: Bloodline-compliant, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Waltzing, Young Ben Solo, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-19 18:07:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 61,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14242881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killtheselights/pseuds/Killtheselights, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyoftheHouse/pseuds/TheLadyoftheHouse
Summary: “Conceal me what I am, and be my aidFor such disguise as haply shall becomeThe form of my intent.”One year after the events of The Last Jedi, Rey is presented with a unique offer: Accompany Supreme Leader Kylo Ren to a ball in exchange for intelligence that could save the Resistance.She quickly learns that a waltz can be more dangerous than a lightsaber fight.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t know who you are, girl,” the slender woman said finally as she ushered Rey down the gangway. “But you are worth quite the credits to some powerful people in this galaxy.”

_Conceal me what I am, and be my aid_  
_For such disguise as haply shall become_  
_The form of my intent._

Twelfth Night, or What You Will, I.II.50-52

* * *

Rey thought, for the briefest second, that she was drowning.

She didn’t realize she had been slipping in and out of consciousness until she came to while partially undressed under a stream of running water. After all, she had only just started to get used to the sensation of warm, regular showers.

She would have jerked herself to her feet to assume some sort of defensive stance, but she was too disoriented to properly locate and use them. After a few more seconds, in which she was able to identify that she was, in fact, flat on her back on the shower floor, a strange face peered down at her through the doorway.

“Oh good, you're up.”

The willowy humanoid woman who looked down at her was heavily made up in dark shades that matched her black and white patterned clothing. Rey noticed vaguely that her captor spoke Basic in a strange accent.

“Hurry, we are running behind. Make yourself presentable.”

Rey wanted to protest. She wanted to demand answers. She wanted to fight this stranger, and command her to set her free.

“Wha—” was all she managed to choke out. Her tongue felt heavy and lazy in her dry mouth. She couldn't quite sit all the way up yet, though she had managed to slide her back up against the shower wall. From this semi-upright position, she contorted herself into a sort of ball, resembling a cracked egg more than a fighter.

“Oh, there is no way I'm bathing you,” her captor snorted. “There is no bounty high enough for that.” She gestured indifferently to several bottles on the floor. “The soap is next to you. Make it fast. There's a robe out here when you're done.”

She turned away, and Rey distantly heard, "He may dock my reward if we're late, so be quick about it.”

 

Rey desperately tried to remember how she got into this scenario as she worked a lather into her hair. The last thing she remembered, she had been on another reconnaissance mission for the Resistance, looking for pockets of dissent against the First Order in distant systems while also hunting for the remaining kyber crystal mines. These held the key to repairing her splintered lightsaber. She remembered having left a planet in the Abregado system, but before she could get her small star skimmer to make the leap into hyperspace to rendezvous with her friends and Resistance colleagues, she found herself being caught by the tractor beam of a much larger ship. She had become a better pilot since leaving Jakku and training under Resistance pilots, real pilots, but her frantic steering and button activation had proved fruitless in this instance. She remembered her utter frustration at being, yet again, at the mercy of an unknown malevolent force. Though she had stashed away the pieces of her lightsaber and prepared her staff for her own defense, she had been rendered unconscious soon after by what she could only assume was some sort of gas pumped into her ship, given her current bleary, lethargic state.

She had thus far managed to stand and tried to seek out an exit, to begin her escape. However, given that she had been stripped of most of her clothing besides her underwear and chest wrappings and was now soaked through to her bones, she felt that escape would be difficult, and that was all before considering the surly jailer waiting for her impatiently just outside the refresher. Propping herself up with one arm against the wall, she had sought to make herself thoroughly clean, figuring that taking her time and indulging in a luxury like a warm shower might be her best chance for insubordination while she slowly regained her senses and found her bearings.

However, her captor’s patience ran out long before the hot water did, and Rey soon found herself getting dragged out of the refresher, smothered in a towel, and stuffed into a sleek black dressing robe. She tried to protest, to struggle, but it was if her limbs were wading through tubs of Bacta while everyone else was darting around her, completely unencumbered. Another member of the crew slapped some binders onto Rey’s wrist and helped her shove her heavy feet back into her boots before the tall woman paraded her down the corridors to lead her off the ship.

Her imagination, usually viciously creative in the face of danger, seemed likewise mollified by the gas, and she could only vaguely envision the terrors awaiting her when she left the dingy hallways of the freighter. If life on Jakku had taught her anything, it was that a bad situation could always be worse, and more often than not, if it could get worse, it would. Her clunky old speeder often broke down right before sandstorms, leaving her trapped, huddled overnight in the eerie wreckage of gutted Imperial Star Destroyers. Unkar Plutt, never a friendly face at Niima outpost, was often only the third most unpleasant person she would encounter on any given day.

Being kidnapped was another thing, however; she could only imagine the horrible hovels she was about to be trafficked into in her undressed state. Poe would often regale her with stories of his misadventures into skeevy cantinas and spice trader dens in his short but fabled history as a Resistance operative. These stories served as both sordid entertainment and harsh warnings before she took off on her reconnaissance missions; though she would never let Poe see her fear, she always was extra cautious when heading to unfamiliar systems, his warnings sticking in her mind and her staff never straying far from the pilot’s seat.

If anything was good about the gas they had poisoned her with, it was that she was so lethargic she was unable to feel fear at her current predicament. Well, almost unable.

“I don’t know who you are, girl,” the slender woman said finally as she ushered Rey down the gangway. “But you are worth quite the credits to some powerful people in this galaxy.”

“I’m nobody,” Rey mumbled, trying to remember her Resistance training related to torture and capture, but failing rather spectacularly.

“I’m certain you are. But not tonight.” The woman dug her claw-like nails into Rey’s upper arm to propel her faster.

As Rey’s feet stepped onto the planet’s surface for the first time, she felt something flood into her chest. It was a strange sort of wariness, but it was the most salient, definitive sensation she had uncovered since discovering the scalding water on her skin. She looked up in surprise at the feeling, expecting to find herself on a grungy spaceport, with the Force sending her a harsh warning from any aggressors nearby.

Instead, she gazed across a lavish city lit by a late afternoon sun. The buildings stretched out on the cliffside below her glowed a pristine white. They cascaded downhill to a small sliver of beach around a large, sapphire-blue body of water. Rey felt a warm breeze brush against her messy, still-damp hair and exposed legs as it blew out to sea. Bustling streets wound their way through the city, and Rey thought she could distantly hear chatter in a number of alien languages.

The kidnapper nudged her along, clearly pleased with her prisoner’s shock, and muttered a few unintelligible words into a comm device. The landing pad Rey trudged across was not packed with slavers, mercenaries, and spice traders, but instead was clearly privately owned and attached to the large manor nearby. Rey could barely make out the shape of it in the distance; her eyes, accustomed to the dark interior of the ship, were struggling to focus in the oppressive daylight, while her mind fought against its haze to make sense of the situation. The unease in her chest only grew, and like the sea below, seemed to beat against her like waves on the shore.

Her captor entered a code into the side door of the manor house, and as she forced Rey through the doorway, she became acutely aware of how out of place she was. The chamber she was in seemed to have been specifically designed to be unapologetically elegant, accented as it was by striking white and gold features, including a tall, golden door at the opposite end. The plush carpet beneath her clunky boots was striking indigo, a color she was beginning to become familiar with through her travels. The high ceiling, crisscrossed by supports and complicated but artistic lighting features, reminded her of a temple. The windows, dozens of them, stretched almost all the way to the high ceilings like elongated ovals. Through some of them, she could view other parts of the building, including other, likely identical hallways with equally marvelous windows. A number of puffy evening clouds had rolled in, obscuring the sunlight, and casting the hall in a somber shadow.

Though the dressing robe she wore was perhaps considered nice, she knew she was far too underdressed for her current location. And she didn’t dare catch a glimpse of her hair and face in one of the pristine windows. Though she had rarely felt self-conscious on Jakku, her life ever since had taught her the worst form of humility, and indeed the worst part of socialization: shame. She tried not to dwell on her appearance, but instead focus on the Force roiling within her, pushing her pride far from her mind as she glanced around the splendor of the hall.

Her heart was now beating rapidly, perhaps shaking off the last of the gas’s lethargy. The worry that had curled in her chest now blossomed in a way that threatened to consume her. The Force was yelling to her, screaming to her a message she could barely hear, but that sounded familiar to her.

Halfway down the hall, her captor paused, gripping her arm in a wordless command to stop.

“My lord, the girl, as we agreed.”

From out of a small nook in the hall stepped a darkly cloaked figure. Rey’s stomach lurched as she processed why she had been so strangely anxious upon exiting the ship, why her chest had felt so constricted, why the Force had sent her the warning she had been unable to decipher. Standing before her, dressed almost exactly as she had seen him in the forest on Takodana, was Kylo Ren, the Supreme Leader of the First Order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I studied Shakespeare internationally on a scholarship so yeah, this how I chose to use that knowledge.
> 
>  
> 
> Oh, we are going to have fun.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do I even have a choice?” she demanded, her voice echoing off the high ceiling.
> 
> “You always have."

The Force seemed to relax, no longer knotted up like a coiled, angry snake in Rey’s chest. It now seemed to curl around her with electricity, as if it were eagerly gesturing to the other Force user before her and shouting _“See?”_

Rey couldn’t have been less thrilled.

“Many thanks, Bazine. I knew you would accomplish the task.”

“Hiding in the shadows as usual, my lord? Your flair for the dramatic is much appreciated,” Bazine said, smirking at the imposing figure. “As I might say, is your payment.”

Bazine jerked Rey forward, closer to Kylo Ren. Rey flinched but tried to maintain her posture.

"Rey, the Resistance Scavenger," Kylo said, his bassy, mechanical voice modulator giving no indication of any emotion. "It's been a while."

She shrugged at Bazine’s hand clawed around her arm and tried to draw herself up as tall as she could in the face of the towering shadow before her. Rey swallowed hard, trying to push her dread down her throat; her attire certainly did not help with her confidence. Mind racing in rising panic, she remembered her newly acquired mantra: _what would General Organa do?_ She schooled her face into the look of regal disdain that she imagined Leia saved for only the scummiest of her acquaintances.

“Ben Solo,” she began, then paused. “Oh, forgive me, new regime. Supreme Leader Ben Solo.” She dipped her head with a sardonic bow.

What remained unsaid between them was that the regime change was, of course, his doing, but the holonet had been circulating the official First Order-sanctioned story: that she had been the one to kill Snoke before escaping in the chaos of the Supremacy's destruction. Rey, unsure of how to explain her complicated relationship with the only other Force user in the galaxy, hadn’t bothered to correct this narrative within the Resistance.

She stuck her chin up and tried to meet his eye through the visor of his mask.

“Finally getting around to finishing me off? Thank goodness, I’ve been waiting for the ax to drop for weeks. Well, let’s get it over with, then.” She prayed that he couldn’t hear the tremor coiling around her throat.

Though it was barely imperceptible, Rey knew from the slight quake in the Force that rippled through his cloak that she had sparked his rage. However, it passed quickly, as he replied, "I see we are being familiar. Well, that makes it easier for both of us."

"I had to wash her, sir," Bazine interjected, smirking. "She smelled like a sweaty cockpit. I wanted your prize to be presentable."

Kylo turned his mask toward the mercenary, bobbing his head in acknowledgment before turning back to Rey and taking a step closer to her.

"If I wanted you dead, we wouldn’t be speaking. I would not have expended such a great personal cost to bring you here. I could easily dispatch you without the luxury of Bazine's craft."

Bazine cocked an eyebrow in pride but said nothing.

Rey tried not to let her shock color her expression. She had expected to be executed once they made planetfall. She didn’t know what to think now. Why shouldn’t he kill her? What could he possibly want with her? She wanted an explanation.  
  
Instead, she offered a Han-worthy smirk.  
  
“I suppose I should be flattered then,” she said. “Although sending a bounty hunter seems so...impersonal.”  
  
She shrugged nonchalantly, the dressing robe slipping slightly to reveal one shoulder. “I guess, now you’re at the top, you don’t have to do your own kidnappings yourself.”  
  
She leveled the cowled man with a withering glare.  
  
“Now why don’t we dispense with the niceties and the masks, and get to the point. Since we’re being familiar.” She flashed a tight-lipped smile, more grimace than grin.

She might have felt him chuckle through the Force, but she couldn't tell. He strode past her to Bazine, presenting the hunter with a small wallet of credit chips.  
  
"As we discussed," he said. "Stay within the planet's orbit."  
  
"A pleasure as always, Supreme Leader," Bazine said, beginning to turn away. "I will keep my comm ready in case of any changes in plans." She sauntered away down the gilded hallway, giving him a sly smile and a sarcastic salute before disappearing out the door.  
  
It was only then that Kylo Ren moved to take off his mask.

His helmet, a newer, more ostentatious version of the one he wore  on Takodana, released with a hiss, a slow, solemn ritual. When he pried his mask from his face, Rey felt both relieved and horrified. She learned his face, down the most minute details, from their Force connection. Her heart lurched to think that it had once even been comforting, when she landed on board the Supremacy after being carried by the Millennium Falcon’s cramped escape pod. She remembered the warmth of his Force signature as the pod gently dropped to the deck, and the relief to gaze upon his face in person for the first time since their fight on Starkiller base.

She remembered, too, the sorrow in his face, the desperate pleading when he asked her to join him in crushing the Resistance and ruling the galaxy. That was a far less fond memory.

However, despite the sharp increase in his station since their last encounter, she couldn't ignore how sickly he looked. His skin was pale, paler than she had ever seen it, even including the time he was bleeding heavily from a bowcaster wound to the abdomen. His eyes were circled with dark purple bags above his gaunt cheeks. His lips, red and pouty in all of her memories of him, seemed ashen and rough, chapped like hers had become from prolonged exposure to the Jakku climate. The scar she had given him, a long thin slash from brow to clavicle, now appeared as an angry red line that seemed to divide his countenance. His abundant black hair fell listlessly onto his face, no longer well-coiffed as it had been upon their first meeting, but rather limp and greasy, giving him an overall impression of being a drowned phantom.

Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order, looked exhausted.

She felt an unbidden pang of concern ripple out from her and by the minute flinch of his sallow skin, she knew he felt it too. Rey mentally shook herself. This was not the man whose hand had touched hers so gently on Ahch-To. This was not the man who fought beside her in the bloody throne room. This was not Ben Solo.  
  
He raised his eyes carefully to meet her stare. She willed the steel back into her voice, although she couldn’t help the softening of her eyes at the sight of him.  
  
“You look like nerf shit,” she deadpanned.

He snorted. "I'm in good company, at least." He kept his gaze downward as if he were utterly fascinated by Rey’s footwear.  
  
"I would have come for you myself, but if the Supreme Leader of the First Order takes a TIE fighter out for a joyride, the odds of no officers taking notice are slim. This was the best way to seek you out personally." He paused. "I wanted to find you, and protect you."

Rey hefted her bound hands in his direction, catching his eye with a displeased look.

“I’m feeling very protected right now.”  
  
She was finding it hard to look at him for any real length of time. It pained her to see him looking so sickly. It was unbearable to see the aching behind his dulled black eyes.  
  
A thought flashed brightly across her mind: would he be this way if she had taken his hand on the Supremacy? Could her acceptance have spared him his anguish? What if? _What if..._  
  
Rey was a creature of the present: survive today so you can be alive until tomorrow becomes today. She tried not to deal in what if’s. So she looked her present situation dead on, despite her discomfort.  
  
“Why am I here, Ben?” she murmured.

He glanced up to look at her eyes. She had seen him give her that look before, the last time they glimpsed each other through their Force Bond.  
  
"Right," he said, shifting nervously. "I would like to make you an offer."

She exhaled a painful breath. “You already know my answer,” she said. “You could’ve saved your credits.”

He failed at keeping the pain from his expression. "I figured you wouldn't accept, but please hear me out. I know after our last interaction I couldn't come to you without an offering.”

Her emotions took another dive as her expectations were dashed.  
  
“What are you talking about?” she asked, finally unable to contain her shock.

As he weakly drew himself up to his fullest height, Rey became suddenly aware of the fact he had been slowly sinking into a slouch. He walked toward her with the caution of approaching a hurt animal.  
  
"I was invited as the guest of honor to a ball here in Canto Bight. Tonight. I was determined not to go when I received the invitation, but I was advised that to stay away would seem elitist and would alienate supporters. I have to go to keep up appearances."  
  
He paused. She could feel his panic whispering to her through the Force. _Who was he to tell this to her? He knew she had no reason to feel any sort of empathy for his plight, if it could even be called a plight._ He sighed, the exhaustion he had exhibited earlier when he first removed his mask seeming to bubble up under his skin, weighing him down.

"So against my personal preferences, I'm here. But I'm not a socialite, Rey. I couldn't do this alone. I was told that I could bring a guest, and, well..."  
  
He swallowed hard. "I want you by my side." He dropped his head in exasperation, running his hand through his grimy hair.

It took Rey a long, long moment to speak again.

“You...you kidnapped me...so you could have a date to a ball?” She worked the words out slowly as if they were a foreign tongue. She found his eyes again, burning like coals and...scared? She approached him deliberately, her gaze boring into him until she was nearly pressed against him. She could feel the anticipation rolling off of him like lightning, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up.

So when she lifted her bound hands and started beating them against his chest, he didn’t quite know how to react. He just stood there and took it. Her robe slipped scandalously loose in its sash dropping low on her other shoulder, but she couldn't have cared less about how she looked to him as her fists flew. She was too angry. He merely held his gloved hands up defeatedly.

Once she’d gotten it out of her system she stepped back again, puffing a loose strand of hair out of her eyes.

“If you’re wasting your own credits like this, all the Resistance is going to have to do is wait for you to run the First Order bankrupt,” she snapped.

"The Resistance might not have that much time," he said. “I told you, I knew better than to come to you empty-handed, and I haven’t.”

He took a step back to better regard her. With his helmet in his hands and his apprehensive expression, he looked like one of the younger Resistance pilots delivering uncomfortable news to General Organa.

“First Order intelligence has been tracking you and your friends in an attempt to locate the new Resistance base. You, the pilot, the defector, the General, and a few others.”

Despite her shock, Rey did not fail to notice his reluctance to name her friends or his mother.

“We’ve been able to identify and track a number of suspected Resistance vehicles, and have begun to narrow down possible bases of operation. Your movement could only have a few weeks left.”

Rey staggered. Her heart sank into her stomach. Then she exploded.

“This is what you think will get me to agree? You can dress it up however you want, Ben Solo, but blackmail is still blackmail! I thought we were beyond that!”

She fought against the angry tears burning in her eyes. She had to get back to base, warn them, do _something_. As the thought of pummeling him again crossed her mind, Rey returned her burning gaze to her captor.

“Do I even have a choice?” she demanded, her voice echoing off the high ceiling.

“You always have,” he said softly, standing closer to tower over her. “If you choose to leave right now, you can take the knowledge I just gave you as a gift. Tell the Resistance whatever story you need to so that they trust your information, just get your people out of that system as fast as you can. Trade in or sell your ships wherever you can get a willing buyer, and start fresh on a new planet. Clean your slate while you still can.”

He took a deep breath before continuing. She knew she was radiating fear, sorrow, anxiety for her friends, and his face, worn as it was, indicated that he felt all of it. The crux of everything he had failed to say so far was struggling to come out, and his words spill out in a frantic cascade.

“If you stay, come to this gala with me tonight, I will do more than just give you a lead. I have access to the intelligence records; I can remove the last several tracking entries for you and your friends, fabricate some transmission data in place of the missing files, and get our intelligence off your trail. This will buy you a few months, at the very least. I know your Resistance is still recovering from your last evacuation. You probably don’t have the funds to keep running away just yet. This will give you time to regroup and plan a new strategy before getting out of there.”

His voice dropped once more to a whisper. “You know I wouldn’t force you, Rey. Never again.”

He took a step closer and removed the binders from her wrists.

“Bazine’s ship is waiting in the upper atmosphere with your skimmer and clean laundry. Say the word, I’ll call her down. I’ll never make you stay if it’s not what you want.”

As always, Rey forgot he was a third generation diplomat and a smuggler’s son. He didn’t even have to use the Force to coax her mind towards his wishes.  
  
In a twisted way, she trusted his word completely. He had never lied to her. He never would. It was an impossibility. She had seen inside his mind and knew that for all the harmful things he had done, he would never intentionally lead her astray.   
     
Dazed, she stumbled over to the wall beside her and slid down to sit, resting the back of her head against the cool marble. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe normally again before she spoke.  
  
“If I do this, you’ll let the Resistance go?” she whispered.

He strode over to her, his force signature warm and soothing. "Without hesitation. You accompany me for a few hours and I will make you and those you care about disappear from the records." 

She sighed into his aura, warmed by its rays. He always surprised her with how... _good_ he could be, under all of the black and the rage. This was her Ben.  
  
She idly fixed the shoulders of her robe and craned her neck to look all the way up at him.  
  
“I have just one more question before I answer, if you’ll permit me,” she murmured, her frustrations and fears melting away in his radiance.  
  
"Ask away,” he said. He seemed a bit shocked, but he failed at completely masking his exuberance in his eyes.

 _That explains the mask,_ Rey thought.

She fixed him with her amber gaze, utterly capturing him.  
  
“Of all the people you could have picked to go to a fancy party, why in the Maker’s name would you choose me? I never really learned manners or socializing or dancing. Surely there must be a princess somewhere you could’ve invited? I’m nobody from nowhere. So what could you possibly gain from me being here?”

He thought about it briefly before speaking, his jaw set in the determined way she had seen several times before.  
  
"Because more than anyone else, you acutely understand what it feels like to be in a room with dozens if not hundreds of people and still feel lost and alone," he said. "This is my first formal event as Supreme Leader, but not my first in this kind of society."  
  
Still deep in his musing, he began to pace.

"I was raised alongside the New Republic. I was dragged along with my parents to a number of these functions, where I had to be well-behaved while my mother made important deals that would seal the fate of her pet government. Even as a Force-sensitive child, I knew these events were nothing more than illusions. They’re like a hall of mirrors. You are distorted by those around you. Some want to make you feel big, others want you to be smaller and lower than them."  
  
He sighed and turned back to her, weariness again gripping his face.

"I can't endure that alone, or worse, with a sycophant like Hux as my only company. I didn't want to subject you to it. You’re too good for this kind of thing. But I could put you in a den of beasts and you...you wouldn't care. Their judgment and pettiness mean _nothing_ to you. You are above it all. You aren't nobody, Rey; no, all these people are wearing their finery to hide how they are nothing beneath the clothes and wealth. You may not be the most refined or the best schooled in etiquette, but you know who you are. That is the greatest power I can think of."

She thought she could detect a faint smile behind his eyes as he finished, offering her his hand to bring her to her feet. "I could use that power tonight."

Her fingers curled around his as she stood, eyes locking onto their joined hands. His were huge compared to hers, with wide calloused palms and long thin fingers. They were strong and full of potential. She could practically feel his anticipation through his gloves, thrumming under her fingertips. She looked back up at him.

“Alright,” she whispered, almost not trusting her voice to say the words. something

“Yes. I will accompany you to your gala, Ben. Are you happy?” she added warily.

"I didn't think happiness was an option in all this, but I think I could be," he said, his voice remaining balanced but his eyes warm with joy. "Once we get you cleaned-up and in a gown, I might actually feel good about this whole thing."

She hitched an eyebrow.  
  
“And what’s that supposed to mean? You think I couldn’t look pretty?”  

She crossed her arms across her chest, keeping the too-big robe from flying off her shoulders again.

“Try me, Solo, I don’t care how nice your hair is.”  
  
Her hands shot up to her mouth as her face burned.  
     
“Kriff, tell me I didn’t say that out loud.”

He gave his mane a proud toss before fitting his helmet over his head.

"You did. And I didn't mean that in a bad way," he said. "I'm just eager to see what you look like in something...a little different." With another hiss, the mask slid back into place.

Her face burned a bit brighter. Kriffing hells, was he flirting with her? She couldn’t tell with the blackened chrome in the way. She eyed the mask with skepticism and dislike as she tightened the belt on her robe.  
  
“Well whatever your cronies find to truss me up in, I can promise you that the helmet will clash. I’ll make sure of it,” she warned.  
  
_No more monsters in masks,_ she thought, willing him to hear it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TheLadyoftheHouse told me I should write this idea for a fanfic I had, so I typed chapter 1 on my phone while watching Queer Eye on Netflix and voluntold her to roleplay Rey with me for chapter 2.
> 
> Friendship.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ben, let me clear: you're going into a gathering of your supporters accompanied by your worst enemy, the enemy of your people,” Rey stated.
> 
> “I know,” he said. “I thought it sounded fun.”

“You don’t need to worry about getting yourself ready; that’s all taken care of,” Kylo Ren said, opening a door in the entranceway that led deeper into the maze of opulent hallways and stairwells that was the manor. He held it open and let Rey pass through; a strangely genteel gesture, given the monstrousness of his appearance.

“If your party preparations are anything like Bazine's delivery methods, I can't say I'm particularly excited,” Rey muttered. “I'm still not sure how I am able to walk without tipping over.”

“She has a tendency to over-do things. She is more of a mercenary than a bounty hunter, after all,” Kylo Ren said, a bassy rumble in the mask. Seemingly inspired by their conversation, he gently placed his gloved hand on the center of her back, a chaste, gentlemanly touch, accounting for the instability of her current attire and her still slightly sedated legs.

They passed a number of servants, both organic and mechanical, buzzing about carrying linens and trays. Rey felt again that she ought to be embarrassed in her current state: still damp, barely dressed, and slightly flushed from the exertion of merely walking around the manor. The servants took no notice of her. They did, however, dart away from her companion.

After becoming preposterously disoriented, Rey found herself on a floor which she assumed was only bedrooms, given the relative coziness of the furnishings. Kylo opened a door on his left and lead her inside.

“You're welcome to get ready in here. I borrowed an attendant droid from our host to help you prepare. It should arrive shortly. I have given it instructions to help you prepare; if there is anything else you will need, you can let me or it know.”

The usually grim monotone of his mask seemed a little out of place in the confined quarters. Everything about him seemed out of place now that he was removed from the context of the stark, oppressive First Order architecture, but she thought that the comfort of their current space gave a slight air of humanity to his ghoulish figure.

“There are a few gowns in there to choose from already in the closet. Bazine helped with those. I hope you like at least one of them.” Rey detected, for perhaps the second time that day, some sort of unease from him. He was...embarrassed? Could that be shyness? She had never really seen either emotion from him.

She stood in the middle of the most luxurious bedroom she had ever been in, and though she normally would have been pleasantly overwhelmed by the gorgeous decor, it took all of her effort to tamp down the anxiety swirling through her. She was full of too many questions that she barely knew where to begin.

“Ben, let me clear: you're going into a gathering of your supporters accompanied by your worst enemy, the enemy of your people,” Rey stated.

He stepped further into the privacy of the bedroom and removed his helmet again. His expression was unreadable. He still looked weak, ill.

“I know,” he said. “I thought it sounded fun.”

“Fun?” Her temper began to rise. “If they discover who I am, they will rip me limb from limb!”

“Of course,” he said, clearly unbothered. “But they won't be able to discover who you are.”

“What makes you so sure of that?”

“Necessary precautions,” he said, pressing his weight against the door frame. “Tonight, you will not be you. You will have a fake name, false identity, a disguise. Unless you announce yourself and state your intentions, you should be fine.”

She watched as he fiddled with his helmet.

“You think so?” It was less of a question and more of demand.

He looked up at her. “No one will hurt you, least of all me. I wouldn’t have brought you here just to have someone else kill you in front of me.”

“Reassuring,” Rey muttered, disgust and exasperation mixing in her voice.

He paused, gazing at her. “Rey, you're one of the most astonishing people in the entire galaxy. I'd rather have you fighting me—travelling across the galaxy and subverting everything the First Order does—every day for the rest of my damned life if it means you're alive.”

Rey realized her eyes had met his briefly, and they both looked away, uncomfortable. His phrasing, though morbid, was strangely sentimental, and she felt her heart lurch. She hated the possibility of feeling anything resembling compassion for him, but it was boiling up again.

Thankfully, he took this moment to see himself out.

“I’ll leave you to it, then. My quarters are in the next room. I will come to get you in just over an hour. If you need anything that your attendant droid can't provide, let me know.”

Rey nodded, mumbling a half-hearted thanks in parting, and watched him tug the door shut behind him. It was only then that she took a moment to absorb the space she was in. The room was bigger than the main hold on the Millennium Falcon and was richly furnished in what she assumed was the height of contemporary Cantonican style, featuring lots of white with black and teal accents. Though Rey herself felt small and grungy in the opulent space, she mused that this environment must have been commonplace for General Organa. Resistance officers tried not to allude to the fact their matriarch was once royalty (and, Rey believed, always would be, despite the destruction of her homeworld), but it was hard to look at Leia Organa and not see the regal demeanor and cultivated confidence that comes from a royal upbringing.

 _Does that make Ben Solo a prince?_ she wondered. Prince of nothing but ash and the broken dreams of millions of lost lives.

Yet despite his darkness and general roughness, he was more accustomed to this world of high society galas than she ever could be. She knew General Organa wasn't ostentatious, and Han Solo was anything but refined, but their son was caught between their two realities, spread thin amongst a number of very different worlds. Son of a senator and smuggler. Heir to the Jedi legacy. First Order commander. No wonder he had splintered.

From her last connection with him on Crait until the moment she gazed upon that loathsome mask in the hallway, Rey had battled with her feelings about Ben Solo — Kylo Ren — whoever he was. She spent many nights lying awake in various temporary Resistance housing units staring holes in the ceiling as she replayed every moment that passed between them. She ran their conversations over and over again, trying to remember every word that they exchanged, every vision she saw when their minds had been connected. Tried not to forget the reasons she hated him, just as she struggled with her desire to remember reasons she had been compassionate towards him in the first place.

Night after night she relived their first connection when he tried to get her to bring Luke to him and she had shot at him in fear and rage. She saw, again and again, the way he had looked at her in pain when she spat the word “Monster” at him. She had carefully navigated the connection neither of them had wanted: when he had appeared half-naked before her, his muscular, bare torso disarming to her as he tried to coax her to see things from his perspective.

She later felt foolish for reaching out for him after her vision in the cave, but at the time, she had not regretted the comfort she sought with him, because he had provided the solace, the clarity, and the understanding she needed.

She had hated him so deeply since their last confrontation on the Supremacy that it had become almost impossible to remember that she had felt such empathy for him when they had touched hands across the galaxy, and yet those feelings had come rushing back the moment he removed his helmet in the hallway.

She knew that moment, holding hands through the Force, had been the instant when her opinion of him changed for good. She saw him as something other than a creature that had murdered Han Solo, the legendary pilot who became one of her first friends when she fled Jakku. She saw instead the boy on whom so much of the galaxy rested, the boy who wanted nothing to do with the legacies foisted upon him.

She had viewed the real Ben Solo then, and though she later learned Snoke had manipulated their Force connection, she knew that what she had seen wasn’t fake; she recognized the sad but powerful boy who was starved for companionship, for love, still lurking just under the mask of Kylo Ren. She felt sorrow for him, but more than that, when she felt his rough fingertips beneath hers, she found comfort, acceptance.

She had hated when he looked into her mind on Starkiller Base, true, but when he opened up to her through their connection, she found herself gazing into his memories just as he had hers. She saw in him the same emptiness she had felt for many nights on Jakku. She knew his Force presence emanated a dark power and raw, untamed strength, but hidden away behind all that, she had seen what Ben Solo could be without the Darkness, and she found her heart longing for the solace she had found in that man’s mind.

She had seen herself in him because even though he was surrounded by people who had been mythical,  they had been just as distant in his life as they were to her, as her parents had been to her. She felt this, and her heart had ached with his shared pain.

She had buried this ache under the sting of his betrayal, so raw and sore even after many months. He had told her she was nothing. _Nothing!_ She reminded herself of this every time her heart dared to bleed for the sad young boy Ben Solo, who had sought comfort in the Darkness when his cries to his parents, his uncle, his peers had gone unheard.

Rey knew what he had meant, though; it was something Unkar Plutt had told her whenever she dared demand her fair portions for the parts she found. She was nothing, she was nobody. It was how she survived on Jakku: by keeping her head down and blending into the sand. By becoming nobody, she was safe. But nobody Scavenger that she was, she was alone and running out of hope just before she had escaped the planet.

Even though she had made friends in Finn, Han, Chewbacca, and Leia, Ben Solo — or Kylo Ren, or whoever he had been in that moment – reached out to the dark place in her that still felt that loneliness, and tried to let her know she didn’t have to feel that anymore. He offered her a way out, but it was an escape she could never take.

One night, sitting outside the Resistance base, she looked to the stars, focusing on that ache in her, she tugged faintly, trying to feel for the Ben she had known so briefly in the Force. Somewhere, likely in a Star Destroyer torturing some poor, defenseless, mineral-rich world, she felt an echo, if only for a heartbeat.

In that instant, she realized why she had spent so long hating him: she had found kinship with him unlike that of anyone else in the Resistance, in the galaxy, and he had turned that into a weapon against her. He had used her desire for companionship to ask her to sacrifice her beliefs for him. At that moment he had shattered her heart; she knew she had cared for him, for the Ben Solo hidden beneath the black cloak and ghastly helmet, but she was hurt by the selfish desires of Kylo Ren, who had offered her his concealed hand and the promise of the galaxy under their rule, that she had turned her back on all of him.

She had been fighting against him since they parted. She couldn’t believe she was allowing herself to join him now.

She knew she had to help her friends and save the Resistance, but maybe she also still believed in the Ben Solo she had known, trusted that he was doing the right thing because he cared for her. Maybe that ache she felt still was something he shared.

The large oval windows in this room, similar to ones in the hallway below, were covered in white curtains that extended from the ceiling to dangle onto the floor. Her view overlooked the back of the manor; she could see the evening shadows growing on the green-topped cliffs that surrounded the city. In her dreams, she could still see herself in her hollowed out AT-AT walker in the Jakku wastes, which made her appreciate the many different planetary views she experienced on her travels even more. This one was beautiful but lifeless, artificial.

She was yanked out of her musings by a sharp whirr. Her attendant droid burst into the room with a lively introduction and a tray of tea.

“Oh, hello! I am W4-A7, and I will be helping you get ready for this evening’s soiree! I see you took the effort to wash your hair already. But might I recommend you more thoroughly rinse your scalp?”

Rey knew right away she was in for a frustrating hour. She wondered if the window of opportunity to change her mind had closed. She briefly considered bolting into the hallway and banging on Ben’s door, before W4 wrangled her into the chair in front of the dresser. The droid scrubbed her scalp and left her hair to dry a second time before it began buffing her face with some sort of scrub, which was supposed to cleanse and soften her skin, but Rey was reminded far too much of getting sand stuck under her goggles while foraging for ship parts to feel very pampered by this. Sensing the human’s irritation, the droid thrust a steaming cup of tea into Rey’s hands to keep her busy while it began to comb locks of her hair in the hunt for split ends. Rey tried to let the warm, herbal drink soothe her, but she had never had anyone else touch her hair before, and though she wasn’t in pain, the tugging of the droid’s firm claws quickly became irritating.

“Do you need more tea? I can pour you a second cup,” the droid chirped with irritating exuberance, brandishing small hair shears. Rey agreed if only to keep the machine from picking at her any longer.

“The Supreme Leader asked me to bring you some,” the droid said as it took the mug swiftly from Rey’s hands and began to refill it. “He said you had been on a long journey. He did not know what kind you would want, so I thought I would brew you a Gatalentan white blend. They are very popular on Naboo.”

“Naboo?”

“Oh yes. That is where you are from, is it not? That is what the Supreme Leader said. I thought you might like some homey touches while you are visiting Canto Bight.”

Rey bristled at the mention of the city. She had heard about it from Finn and Rose. They had recounted their tale of breaking the fathiers free and destroying the city in their escape from the local police dozens of times. No matter how many times she heard it, Finn’s enthusiasm and increasing exaggeration never failed to make her laugh. But Rose always painted the best picture of the city: beautiful, but decadent and destructive. She felt a stab of guilt in her gut; she had to remind herself she wasn’t betraying her friends by being here, but saving them.

“We do not receive many visitors from Naboo, I am afraid,” W4 continued. “However, I was able to download some local hairstyles I am sure you will find to your taste.”

 _Ah_ , Rey thought. _This is what he meant by a new identity._

Rey knew a little about Naboo, she reflected, as the droid began to rattle off some of the hairstyle options for the evening. It was one of the breathtakingly beautiful planets Poe had mentioned in his tales of adventure. Finn was able to rattle off a few facts about it, given that it is revered in the First Order for being the homeworld of Emperor Palpatine. For that reason alone, Rey had little interest in it, though she had heard through the Holonet that it was a planet regarded for being at the height of fashion.

This in no way increased her interest in the planet.

However, she appreciated Ben’s thoughtfulness in sending her a drink and, however indirectly, giving her insight into the role she would play throughout the evening. She wasn't sure what kind of performer she would be, especially given her lack of experience or knowledge of Naboo, but he seemed certain that it would be an easy enough ruse to uphold.

She sighed. She just wanted this over with.

She closed her eyes, testing her Force senses. On the Resistance base, she had been honing her Force senses by reaching out to her friends as Master Luke had shown her Ahch-To. She could always feel General Organa, bright as a star, through the many thick walls. Finn, Poe, and Rose, far less attuned to the Force, left lighter footprints. She gently slipped through to the room next door and found the familiar agonized shadow. It was not Kylo Ren, she felt, no; it was sad and scared, and lonely.

She felt the whispers of his thoughts tumbling around in the Force. He was in pain. He was thinking about her, wondering if he was good enough.

She could feel her heart sink again, the ache of longing she had felt when she touched Ben Solo’s hand before returned unbidden to her.

For all the wrong he had done, the Ben she had cared for was still in the shell of Kylo Ren, she realized.

She thought she had glimpsed him before in the hallway, but now there was no doubt in her mind that Ben Solo, her Ben, was waiting for her in the room beyond.

“Now,” the chatty droid continued as if they had been interrupted from some very important banter and Rey’s thoughts hadn’t wandered to another room. “Which gown did you choose for this evening? I want to make sure that your makeup complements your attire.”

 _Kriff._ Rey didn’t even consider glancing at the options. She’d been too absorbed in the room. _In Ben,_ she guiltily admitted.

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly decide,” she said lightly, taking her first stab at acting out her role for the droid.

“Well, of course not. You have not pulled any out of the closet!” it replied brightly. Rey glowered at it over her mug. So much for performing.

The droid wheeled into the closet and returned a moment later with several hangers.

“These are all the height of fashion, my lady. You cannot possibly go wrong!”

The droid breezed over to the bed and spread out several dresses before vanishing again into the closet, which Rey supposed had to have been larger than the skimmer she had been piloting earlier that day. If it had even been the same day at all; everything that had happened since she awoke in the shower had been a whirlwind, though she was certain the gas hadn’t helped with her sense of time.

W4 piled the last several dresses on the other side of the large, plush bed. Rey assumed there must have been between six or eight, but she was completely overwhelmed by the masses of luxurious fabrics surrounding her in a multitude of hues. There was a silken white gown with floral accents; a rich burgundy, flowy and light; a royal blue one that shifted in the light. She let her coarse hands brush across the different textures, feeling the embroidery and beading as they passed under her rough fingertips.

“You should try the pink,” W4 interjected. “It would look so darling on you.”

“Oh, you’re so right! It is _darling_.” Rey said, making the loathing she felt for the poofy, pastel garment into a bubbly exclamation. This one, she assumed, was sent by Bazine as a joke. But at least her acting seemed to be quickly improving.

However, despite her dislike for the pale pink dress, when she took a step back from the bed, she couldn’t help but marvel at the options before her. She circled the bed with her arms crossed like a beast tormenting its kill, assessing the appeal of each dress. At the very least, even the ugliest among them was appealing in that it was nothing like the beige clothing she had grown up with. The bland, functional attire she had only recently abandoned was made for labor, for heat, for survival. She couldn’t remember the last time she wore a dress, much less anything this fine. If she had worn dresses as a child, she couldn’t remember. Dresses were unsuited to climbing around in the hulls of crashed star destroyers. And now she had her choice of a number of fine gowns.

On Niima outpost, she would occasionally encounter travelers wearing exotic colors like purples and, her favorite, greens. She would know they were outsides by the way they dressed. Often they would be wearing traveling gear built for comfort and leisure, not work, but she would gape in envy at their brightly dyed attire, crisp, clean, not yet faded or grungy. They didn’t need to worry about blending in with the environment or avoiding heatstroke. They had other clothing for later. They would not be trapped in the wastes like she was; they were just passing through, the center of her life was just a miserable little pit stop. They would likely forget it, but she couldn’t forget the colors they wore. Sometimes they would be the only bright colors she saw for months. She herself could never afford the rare fabrics when a bolt would come in for sale. She would try to surreptitiously feel the material in her hand, though she would often be shooed away, too dirty and poor for that sort of thing.

And that’s when she understood another reason why Ben had brought her to him.

She walked up to the bed and approached a dress that was almost buried by the others.

“This one,” she said quietly, running her fingers over the gown’s silken black belt.

“My lady, are you sure you do not want--”

“No, I’m sure,” she said, picking it up and feeling the weight of it in her hands.

It felt powerful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so originally I wrote W4 with the voice of a Midwestern diner waitress but TheLadyoftheHouse reminded me that W4 is actually a Droid. 
> 
> Get a good editor, folks.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The invitation was for Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, not Ben Solo.

The knocks at the door grew more insistent.

“One minute! She is coming!” W4 shrieked, stabbing the last pin into Rey's coiffure. Rey’s hair was braided so tightly and intricately on her head that she didn't even feel the final jab from the droid. She rose swiftly from the vanity chair, as swiftly as she could muster in the cloud of fabric threatening to swallow her whole, and thrust her arms into a pair of black gloves that extended above her elbows. A perfect finishing touch.

Something in the Force felt strange, but she couldn't calm her racing mind enough to focus on it. Her layered skirts rustled behind her as she walked over to the now open door. Her stomach immediately churned.

“Lady Viré,” said the Stormtrooper in the doorway. “The Supreme Leader requests your presence.”

  


Supreme Leader Kylo Ren had anticipated, for the first time in ages, taking a nap.

Upon parting with Rey, he had dispatched the Stormtrooper guarding his room to a new post minding the stairwell at the end of the hallway, lest anyone attempt to harm either Force user while they were indisposed. As Supreme Leader, it was rare that he was able to travel on his own without an escort of guards, and while he much preferred the times when he could vanish onto a Star Destroyer and be left to his own devices, that luxury had been abruptly dissolved when he assumed Supreme Leadership. However, for this event, he decided to cozy up to Captain Phasma and asked her to recommend her boldest, strongest new recruits to join him on a civilian visit.

Of course, his real goal was to protect Rey as much as possible from the ‘troopers and officers who might be too suspicious of his date, the ones who might even be able to recognize her. What he tried to pass off as a reward for the best and newest First Order soldiers was really a way of ensuring no single ‘trooper became too wise. He even verified that none of his guards for this excursion had been on Takodana, the Supremacy, or Crait the last time he had encountered the Scavenger. Many were still in the final stages of training at that time.

Left alone in his room for the first time since he arrived on-world that morning, he set his helmet on the dresser and, after a quick glance in the mirror, began to strip down in preparation for a shower. He knew Rey had been distressed at his haggard appearance; he could feel her anguish, her empathy crushing toward him through the Force. He hadn’t realized that he looked so repulsive, but he barely gave a thought for his appearance anymore. He was always the Supreme Leader, always in demand, always had to wear the mask in case a situation required him to assume command. He never thought when he acquired his first helmet years ago that it would become suffocating. He had been drunk off its power at the time. Now he longed to breathe fresh air more and more, like a drowning man who just barely makes it to the surface before sinking back down.

He let the hot water run over him, his weariness rolling off in waves. He desperately needed a shower but knew that it wouldn’t do much to improve his appearance. Despite Rey’s hatred of the mask, he had to keep it on for the event. He hadn’t told her that yet. Maybe he should have, he thought. The invitation was for Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, not Ben Solo. Maybe Rey would be able to glimpse his face a few more times before she left with Bazine, but he could not guarantee the two of them would be able to slip away to a secluded place that would allow him to remove the mask, look her in the eyes, kiss her…

He scrubbed his scalp harder than strictly necessary to shake away the thought. _She is not mine. She is here to protect her friends. She did not join me before; what would possibly change her mind now?_

When he first removed his mask in the hallway, he could feel in her Force signature her mind racing through memories of him, comparing them to the man standing before her. He could see himself through her eyes standing in Snoke’s throne room on the Supremacy, his hand outstretched, his cheeks, like hers, flushed from exertion and streaked with tears. He knew, her eyes serving as a mirror, that he looked the same now as he did then.

_Pathetic._

He let the warm water wash over him, consuming him like his bitter thoughts.

_You’re not worthy of her. You’re not worthy of love. You’re nothing._

The voice in his head hissed the hateful words in a tone that reminded him too much of his former master.

He was filled with an old instinct: a desire to lash out in self-hatred. Bracing his right arm against the elegant tile wall, he raised his left fist, poised to smash it into his side. He was lucky to have contained the bowcaster bolt that had struck him on the side on Starkiller base, but the wound, still visible as a large crater of scars on his abdomen, never quite healed right. It was better that way, he believed. It would only serve to make him more powerful.

When he first became Snoke’s student he had been taught that Dark Side Force users channel pain to enhance their power. For a young Kylo Ren, that meant being electrocuted until he performed a task properly. Oftentimes, that involved Snoke shocking him repeatedly until he blacked out and returned to consciousness while still convulsing on the floor.

In times of frustration and weakness, he would cause himself pain to center himself on the Dark Side. Recently he achieved this by bringing his fist down against his side, reawakening the soreness that had never completely faded. This habit had started after his second time seeing Rey in the Force when the wound was still relatively fresh. He had let his doubts and fears about his commitment to the darkside grow when she had called him a monster. He thought, at the time, perhaps he didn’t want to be. His hateful voice had spoken up then, too, reminding him that he was a weakling, no better than the pathetic boy who would cry himself to sleep in his hut at the Jedi temple, wracked with all-consuming loneliness and self-doubt.

Now he needed to draw on his reserve of power from the darkness to dispatch the loathing that refused to budge, hanging from his head and shoulders like a cloak. He drew his fist back, preparing to strike on the tender flesh on his side. He landed one blow, hissing at the raw ache that blossomed from the spot where his fist landed. His knees buckled as he buried his knuckles into the wound, feeling a surge in the Force from the soreness deep in his muscle tissue. He let out an involuntary grunt as the pain unleashed another wave of power.

He raised his fist to drive another punch into his side, but he felt a sensation in the Force and froze. He caught himself and relaxed his arm. In his last rush of energy, he had sensed Rey in the next room. He reached out with the Force, trying to feel for her. She was having her ears talked off by the extremely friendly droid. At that moment, she was frustrated, apprehensive, but her thoughts were otherwise light. Through the Force, she felt warm. His self-control had not always been so strong, as evidenced by the scars that streaked his knuckles, but her comfort made him pause from his self-destruction.

 _She does not hate you_ , he gently reassured himself. _She wouldn’t have stayed if she truly did. You can still be good. For her._

_Well, good enough._

He did not entirely believe it, but the positivity was a relief, more so than the shower had been. He shut off the water, letting his pain disappear down the drain.

  


When summoning the attendant droid to Rey’s room, Ben had given it two special instructions:

_Bring her tea, she looks like she could use a boost. Whatever is popular...popular where? Naboo. It’s...yes, that’s where she’s from._

_Also, can you bring me something for my skin? I mean, is there anything you can do about...this? I know I’m not looking my best, yes, any facial creams? Yes, something for under the eyes sounds great._

He hadn’t expected to be swept up in vanity on a night like tonight. He just needed to make an appearance as the Supreme Leader, provide an imposing presence for a bit, greet a few important people, and assure them that their faith in the First Order was well-founded. That was it. Maybe after an hour or so of that he’d be able to slip off his helmet and just blend in, take in the rest of the evening with Rey on his arm. He knew it was almost impossible, but the little glimmer of hope made him feel a bit more delighted at his prospects.

Scrutinizing his reflection in the vanity mirror with a dry expression, globs of face cream applied generously over his skin, he looked no more awake or alert. He still looked worn, but the bags under his eyes had faded a bit — nothing but adequate sleep would truly remove them — and his lips felt less chapped. He should have expected that Rey wanted to see him without his mask and taken the necessary steps to improve his appearance sooner, but as it was, the few actions he had taken had little notable effect. He ran his hands along his cheeks, trying to squeeze a little bit of color into them, but quickly resigned himself to his reflection. The face cream was a supplement, not a miracle cure. He was still pale and gaunt, and his scar red and angry, but at least now he was clean and his skin looked a little healthier. It was the most he could hope for, he supposed.

He shook his damp, dark locks out with a towel and ran his fingers through his hair to comb out all the tangles. Immediately after landing the ‘troopers had brought in his formal uniform, which was made by First Order tailors especially for this evening. With Rey being well cared-for next door, he thought he could safely curl into bed for a little while until the ‘trooper at the end of the hallway returned to summon him at the established time, and hopefully not a moment sooner.

The large bed was plush, and perhaps too comfortable for his nearly ascetic tendencies. He hadn’t slept on a mattress this soft in years, and his back was not used to the luxury. He tried to block off the memory of the similar bed his parents shared when he was younger, one that he would join them in when he was too scared of imagined phantoms to sleep. Just like then, he couldn’t stop turning over, his mind too restless.

He hadn’t really slept properly since Crait. His uncle’s warning flashed in his head every time his head hit the pillow, with visions of the last time he saw Rey through the Force. She had seemed to him like a queen, standing above him, disdain filling the eyes that had once looked at him with adoration.

So for many nights, haunted and unable to sleep, he would give up on trying to drift off and meditate until one or more of the First Order officers summoned him for the latest emergency.

Though he wanted to be well-rested for the gala, the exhaustion that consumed him could not overtake him. The evening’s event weighed too heavily on his mind. But for once, he did not feel the creeping dread of his final Force encounter with Rey on that salted wasteland. She was in the next room, getting ready for him. In that, he found comfort.

Rolling over once more, he felt through the Force for her again. She was still agitated, but more at peace than before, as she bickered with the droid about makeup application.

She froze.

_Ben?_

_Oh._ She had felt him this time. _Hey._

_Go away. I’m not ready yet._

He broke the connection without another thought, but he reeled in the lingering warmth of her aura, a tiny smile briefly quirking the corner of his mouth up. He had not been able to see her like he had when Snoke had bridged their minds, but rather feel and hear her thoughts and speech. He was glad of it; he didn’t want to violate her privacy, no matter how much he liked the way she seemed to be swimming in Bazine’s dressing robe. He had tried not to stare at her too often when she was in a state of relative undress, but he liked the way her slender shoulders would peek out from under the wrap. With a guilty groan, he buried his face in the pillow. He was enchanted by her, every detail of her.

His host, a garrulous but clever Nikto named Shwa’rarth who had managed to pull a few strings within First Order leadership to actually get the gala invitation in front of the Supreme Leader, wasn’t sure what to make of Ren, much less how to approach the fact that he had invited a mystery guest to the affair. Upon the arrival of the First Order landing craft, the Shwa’rarth nevertheless put on a convincing performance of being delighted to be joined by the Supreme Leader and a woman who he believed was a princess or at least to some degree a member of one of the Elder Houses. Shwa’rarth’s enthusiasm and gratitude at having such an honor bestowed on him bubbled out in every other breath from the moment he welcomed the Supreme Leader onto Cantonica, and quickly grew grating.

Behind the mask of the Supreme Leader, Ben tried to put on airs of not being particularly invested in his date in front of the Nikto in case Rey declined his offer, as he had genuinely believed she would. However, as he conversed with his host while strolling from the landing pad to the building, he couldn’t avoid some uncomfortable discussions.

“My guest will be arriving later this afternoon. Is this the best place for her to land?”

“Oh, yes, sir! This is a private pad reserved for only my most esteemed visitors. You can give her pilot those coordinates,” Shwa’rarth said, his tone indicating pride at the implication that he had multiple landing pads attached to his dwelling.

“Your room has been set for you already in the guest wing. It is the grandest one, my Lord, I must say.”

“Is there a second room nearby I could request for my guest?” Ren asked, his mechanical voice passive.

The Nikto sounded shocked. “Yes, sir, of course. But will that really be necessary?”

“She will need a space to get dressed, as she will be on a long flight, but she will not stay the night. Is that too much of an inconvenience?”

“My Lord, not at all,” he said, flustered. “I thought the one room...I just assumed, given your position…”

“You assumed what, pray tell?”

“Well, I just thought…” Shwa’rarth shifted nervously, caught in a vulgarity that was usually approved for a man of his social class. “You are the Supreme Leader. She is your guest. You can take whatever you want.”

His own words stung when they were thrown back at him.

He remembered the fear, the determination in Rey’s eyes when he said those words to her on Starkiller base. His words had carried a different meaning then, but one no less awful. The rage boiling in his belly threatened to erupt, causing him to fling his host against the nearest column until his ribcage shattered, but he drew in a sharp breath to attempt to quell his anger.

“She is my companion for the evening. That is all,” he said brusquely. “She will not be staying the night, and will be gone soon after tonight’s event concludes.”

“My apologies, my Lord,” the Nikto said, thoroughly chastised. “I should not have made such a bold assumption. Is there anything I can do to make your stay more comfortable?”

That was when he requested the attendant droid, the one that had been causing Rey such consternation.

He was not shocked to have heard such a thing from Shwa’rarth, who he had learned descended from lesser crime lords that later became clever entrepreneurs, investing in the growing sale of ion cannon tech in the days before the Galactic Civil War. It was the casualness of the Nikto’s implication that shocked Ben. These people, supposedly high-society supporters of the First Order, saw fit to discuss such base behavior with the Supreme Leader. Perhaps they thought him crass and ill-mannered, due to his relative youth. Worse, however, Ben believed, was that these wealthy supporters, many of whom likely felt entitled to the bodies of their female guests, saw themselves in him.

His anger began to grow at the memory of it before he reached out one more time to brush against Rey’s Force signature.

He let the glow of her wash over him, pulling him into a dream.

He was quickly jerked out of his stupor by a buzzing emanating from the dresser.

Groaning, Ben rolled out of bed and examined the device. When he saw the source of the transmission, he lazily strolled over to the closet to pull out his kit for the evening. Draping the jacket and cape over a chair, he tugged on his underwear, the slimmer, slightly more formal trousers, and a black undershirt before activating the holoprojector.

“General Hux,” he said, masking his irritation in what he hoped sounded like boredom. With Hux, he didn’t feel the need for formality as he did with the younger officers. Enough had passed between the two men that allowed him to keep the helmet off. After all, they both openly felt nothing but disdain for each other; there was no need for masks.

“Greetings, Supreme Leader,” Hux said, the small facsimile assuming his preposterously stuffy posture.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” That was Ben’s code for, _I’d really rather not do this now._ He tossed his suspenders over his shoulders and clipped them to his waistband, paying Hux no attention.

“I hate to interrupt you on important First Order business.” That was what Ben assumed was Hux’s code for, _You’re not as important as others make you out to be. This gala is stupid, you’re stupid. You should have brought me along. I, at least, would have appreciated the accolades._ “But I’ve received word from our scouts in the Outer Rim regarding your visit this evening.”

“Go on.” Ben turned his back to the miniature general to pick up the jacket from the chair. _And make it fast._   
  
Hux seemed to bristle at Ben’s lack of interest in the conversation. “It appears there are dissenters in the region who have been made aware of your presence in Cantonica tonight. I would highly suggest sending a backup garrison to place on stand-by…”

“I have been well-informed. That won’t be necessary, General.” His voice didn’t shake, but Ben’s gut churned. He finished unbuttoning his jacket and began to slip it on. “It’s nothing I can’t handle. I’m sure a few Resistance stragglers won’t interfere with tonight’s events.”

In truth, he had known as much. Shwa’rarth had tried earlier to gloss over the fact that the news of the Supreme Leader’s presence at the gala had been leaked, but naturally, Hux’s desire to be correct and the first to deliver bad news had made this topic of conversation one of particular interest to the General. But while the possibility of dissent against his visit hadn’t worried him, the thought of additional First Order troops arriving and discovering Rey caused his stomach to ball into knots.

“Supreme Leader, I really do insist. It would be far more reassuring to know that our Leader was in capable hands.” Ben preferred Hux when he was a small projection, because, while he was only slightly less irritating as a hologram, Ben could more easily crush the hologram like an insect when the feed went offline. He tried to look busy by buttoning the jacket on himself.

“General, I am confident in my current guards, my host’s security, and my own abilities to de-escalate any incidents that might arise while I am on-world. Besides, if the Galaxy wants a demonstration of the might of the First Order, I would be pleased to deliver it myself.”

Hux sniffed with consternation. “If you believe that is best, my Lord. I will make myself available for contact should anything go amiss. Though while we are on the topic of delivering messages, did you receive the draft of tonight’s speech?”

“I have studied it. It will suffice.”

Judging by the way Hux shifted from foot to foot, Ben could tell that he wrote it, and was hoping for something more than “adequate.”

“Excellent. I shall stand by for further reports on this evening’s events.”

Without any further pleasantries, the blue light dimmed, and Ben breathed a sigh of relief. Crisis averted, for the moment.

As soon as the holo feed ended there was a sharp knocking at the door.

“Sir,” the electronic voice modulator of the Stormtrooper helmet rang out from the other side. “You have a visitor.”

He ran his hand through his hair in frustration before he pulled on his helmet.

So much for a nap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To answer the question scribbled furiously in the margins of an early draft: 
> 
> Yes, he sleeps naked.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I thought we had agreed that masks were not appropriate formal wear, Supreme Leader.”

Rey had been escorted by Stormtroopers before. She didn’t like it then, and, despite her current finery and the grandeur of the situation, she most certainly did not prefer it now. They kept a respectful distance away from her, perhaps in acknowledgment of her projected social status, but it just made her feel more exposed as if they were going to raise their blasters to fire on her at any second.

Fear made her break into a cold sweat, but she tried to keep her grip on what she knew for sure was happening. Currently, she was being led in a ballgown to...somewhere in the house, she supposed. All she knew from the two ‘troopers was that Ben — the _Supreme Leader_ — would be waiting for her when she arrived. He had not come for her well past the hour that was promised, which delighted W4, who could not stop fussing over Rey’s hair, pinning and repinning it so often that Rey was surprised she wasn’t later still.

Now that she didn't know where he was, lost in the labyrinthine halls of the manor, she was feeling just as confused and alone as she had before. Earlier, when Bazine was parading her across the landing pad, she felt barren without her staff or Han’s old blaster or even her lightsaber, however infrequently she used it. She couldn't help but hear the click of the Stormtroopers’ blasters against their thigh armor and feel naked, despite the flowing gown consuming her.

She thought she could trust Ben. She wanted to. But with every tap of her heels and the light whooshing of her skirt against the marble floors, she felt more dread, as if the only thing she was missing were a pair of binders.

 _Maker, what have I gotten myself into_ , she muttered to herself.

Her guards led her to what she could tell by the more modern decor was another wing of the large house. She was stopped in front of a doorway while one of the ‘troopers opened the ornate door in front of her, leading her into a sparsely furnished sitting room.

The Supreme Leader loomed at the other side of the room, a long, ink-black shadow against a squad of stark white. Ben Solo had disappeared into this void of a man. His formal uniform was jet black, the angles and folds of his coat sharp enough to draw blood, the high black collar vanishing under his helmet. The tailoring was excruciatingly precise and somehow managed to make his already broad shoulders seem even more solid. Rey’s breath caught at how much like a prince he looked. A true son of royalty. She noticed a familiar item attached to his right hip: his lightsaber. He hadn’t carried it before when they were alone in the corridor by the landing pad. He must have trusted her not to attack him then. She wondered now if it was for show or necessity.

His long cape crossed his broad chest. It draped off his left shoulder, and was gathered on his right shoulder with a plain silver pin that accented the silver embroidery of his jacket and the glint of chrome that covered his face. Her heart clenched at that.

“I thought we had agreed that masks were not appropriate formal wear, Supreme Leader,” she said, trying to project that same air of regal confidence that rolled off of him in waves.  
  
She knew immediately that she was the pretender in this situation, the masked one. He belonged here.

He turned to look at her, slowly, deliberately, and his heart stuck in his chest. He wasn’t sure he would recover his faculties to breathe again.

No longer the scrappy, dusty scavenger who shot at him on Takodana, she seemed to be in charge of the two stormtroopers who flanked her on either side. Her gown, layers of sheer fabric in varying shades of grey, black, and indigo, made her look like a cloud of smoke billowing up against the night sky. The black ribbon straps that wrapped across her shoulders and waist were complemented by long black gloves that reached well above her elbows. Her hair was pulled back from her face in a complex braid that trailed down her back. Across her forehead was a double-banded circlet, very reminiscent of the banding on his mask. Her back straight, she seemed larger than her small frame, a dark queen surveying her kingdom.

He was almost glad for the mask; he knew he would give himself away to the Stormtroopers if they saw his real expression.

Taking a few tentative steps towards her, he reverently lowered himself into a deep bow.  
  
"On most occasions, I would agree, Lady Viré," he said, hoping she didn't catch the slight quaver in his voice. "But in this case, I couldn't bear to reveal myself, lest the world sees how unworthy of you I am."

Rey’s brain short-circuited, electricity fizzling through each synapse as his cape flared open when he straightened up to his full, immense height. It was lined with red; the red of Snoke’s bloody throne room, the red of the Praetorian guards that fell beneath their sabers, the red of Crait’s earth crusted under his boots and dusting his knees when he last saw her.

She shook herself from her reverie and her face burned.

“I apologize for my absence. I fully intended to escort you to the ballroom properly, but I had other urgent matters to attend to,” he dipped his head once more, a loyal servant doting on his master. “With affairs like these, there is always something urgent to attend to, but nothing else this evening should be considered more critical than your pleasure.”

He must have sensed everything that had just run rampant through her mind. She was too distracted to even attempt to put up her walls. Suddenly remembering the manners that W4 had insisted on imparting earlier that afternoon, Rey tried to curtsy as she had practiced. The combination of her nerves, the dress, and the spindly-heeled shoes she had been strapped into, however, did not cause the desired effect. Her ankle twisted and she lost her balance, pitching forward toward the marble floor.

Ben flew forward, catching Rey’s arm before she could complete her faceplant.

“Are you alright?” he asked, gazing into her stricken face. _Why didn't she use the Force to balance?_ he wondered, before it dawned on him: the Stormtroopers. She was terrified. He hadn't retrieved her from her room and she was likely confused and appalled by them.

Worse, he realized. She couldn't display any Force ability around them, lest they realize what or who she was. He gently raised her to her feet. _Stupid._ This was all his fault.

“Patrol the corridor,” he barked at the assembled Stormtroopers. “Alert us when we should prepare to enter the ballroom.”

The soldiers affirmed their orders and filed out the door Rey had just come from. As soon as the door slammed shut, he addressed her again, much more tenderness coming through the voice modulator. “Rey?”

She gusted out an anxious laugh, covering her reddening face with her free hand.

“It’s these kriffing death traps they’ve put me in,” she muttered disdainfully, lifting her skirts to extend her foot. “I’ve no idea how people walk in these things, let alone do anything else!”

Rey noticed that Ben’s hand was still wrapped around her upper arm. It was large and warm under the soft leather of his glove.

“Oh, not those.” He slid his hand from her upper arm down to her elbow, a slight, affectionate gesture, he hoped. “You're doing me a favor. I don't want you to die in the process.”

“Thanks for the rescue,” she said, looking up at him with a smile, finally a genuine one.

His masked countenance seemed to absorb her gentle expression, but if he smiled in kind, she couldn’t see it.

“I'll send one of the Stormtroopers to get you something easier to wear.”

He dropped her arm and rushed past her through the door. He reappeared a few moments later.

“Because we are going to be formally introduced soon, they will bring you your shoes in the ballroom, so I get a few more moments of enjoying your slightly enhanced stature. I can help balance you until then,” he said, pausing to remove his helmet. He still looked exhausted, Rey noticed, but cleaner, perhaps, and definitely more regal. He shook his dark hair out, now resting in buoyant, loose curls around his face.

“Oh, you’re going to help balance me?” she teased, feeling playful. “I thought that’s what got us into this situation in the first place.”

He exhaled a puff of air in what for most people could easily be identified as a laugh.

“Just don't try to curtsy for a while,” he said. “Where did you learn that, anyway?’

She rolled her eyes. “W4 insisted that it was the correct thing to do at a ball. Was I wrong?”  
  
Rey suddenly felt idiotic and naive and exposed in more ways than one. She had absolutely no idea what she was doing. The lies were being woven so tightly around her that she felt she could barely breathe. What if she said the wrong thing? What if her cover was blown? What would happen to her? To the Resistance? What would happen to Ben?

She suddenly wished for the sturdy support of Ben’s warm hand on her arm.

“Well, it's not a bad start. Keep your shoulders back a little more so you don't tip over–” he stopped abruptly. “I guess it doesn't matter too much. It won't be expected of you as the guest of the Supreme Leader. You won't have to curtsy or bow to anyone out there. Well, except me. And that's only before we dance. If we dance.”

That startled her out of her panic.

"Dance?" she asked. "You...dance?"

He shrugged. "I can, but it's not required of me, so I likely won't."

He let his eyes linger on her, challenging her. "Not unless you want to."

Rey gave him an incredulous look.  
  
"Well, now I think we have to," she said, a coy smile forming on her face that set her eyes glittering with mirth. "We wouldn't want to appear rude to our gracious hosts."  
  
She leaned a bit closer. "Besides, how could I pass up the chance to dance with the Supreme Leader? Really, I insist that we dance this evening."

He swallowed hard. That was the absolute last answer he had anticipated.

“Well, alright. Uhh…” he stammered. It had been years since he had danced. He remembered his mother teaching him in his childhood home on Chandrila, her warm eyes glittering as her laugh carried throughout the house. His father would look on with amusement. _Better you than me, kid._ Still, he could never forget the rhythm she taught him, the basic moves to some traditional royal dances. Could he remember enough to teach her?

“I guess we should start at the top,” he said, sliding off his gloves and sitting them on a nearby table with his helmet. “I will lead with a bow, an invitation, and you will reply with a curtsy. Show me what you did before. Just don't slip this time.”

"Easier said than done, thank you," Rey muttered.  
  
Sweeping her skirts into her hand and remembering this time to keep her back straight, she stepped her right foot behind her left. And with an incline of her head, she dipped gently and, surprisingly, gracefully, the fabric of her gown whispering against the floor. She rose again, wobbling only a little on her shoes. She couldn't help but beam proudly at her would-be partner.

"How was that?" she asked, with a twinkle in her eye.

“I'm impressed,” he said, amusement rising in his features. “If I didn't know better I'd say you were an expert. Now let me see it again.”

He took a step forward, and gave another sweeping bow like before, exposing the blood red underside of his cape.

Rey groaned in mock exasperation.

"Now you're just teasing me, Ben Solo!" she said, trying to suppress the laugh building in her chest.

“No, I’m teaching you the proper etiquette. I did my part; I gave the invitation. How will you respond?”

She executed another curtsy, this one even less wobbly than before. As she rose out of it, she decided to add a little something and tossed her skirts out to the side, letting them flare out like shards of darkened moonlight. As they gently settled back down, she inclined her head toward her shadowy partner, smiling coquettishly. If he was going to tease, then she would return it in kind.  
  
"Your move, Supreme Leader," she practically purred.

She thought she may have caught him smirking, but he tried to hide it.

“Now, I'm a bit out of practice, but the starting form is pretty simple. I'll hold out my hand like so,” he said, stepping in closer to her and offering her his flat, sideways left hand. “And you will take it with yours.”

Rey slipped her hand into his, the satin of her gloves sliding over the ridges of his palm. Even through the fabric, his touch was like electricity and it set the hairs on the back of her neck on end. It was an exciting yet familiar sensation. His fingers gripped hers gently, as if he was holding something precious. She could feel his side of the bond thrumming with an emotion she couldn't quite place.  
  
"Then what?" she asked, her eyes fixed firmly on his face.

He sucked in his lips, a nervous tick.  
  
"You put your hand on my shoulder, and I'm going to need to put my other hand on your back," he said, asking for permission as he simultaneously placed his large, calloused palm on the small of her back, just above her waist.  
  
"Here's where I need you to let me show you. May I?"

Rey nodded slowly, acutely aware of just how close they were at this moment. She could feel the heat radiating off of him like a sun and was briefly reminded of the heat of her own sand trap planet, unbearable and desirable all at once. But he smelled like the rich forests of Takodana, like the saltwater rain on Ahch-To, like ancient paper and fresh ink. And his eyes were still caught on hers.  
  
She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. "Alright, ready when you are," she murmured.

He withdrew his left hand from hers. His bare fingers pinched the black satin glove on her middle finger and tugged it off. Setting it next to his helmet, he returned his right hand firmly on her lower back, and took her free hand in his. Though they had felt each other's hands through their Force connection, they had never had skin to skin contact before, but each had been starved for this kind of touch. Rey had been alone and without friendly contact like this for years in isolation on Jakku, and Ben’s own exile within the First Order had meant that for years the only contact he received was violence.

To touch each other was like exhaling a breath they didn't know they were holding, and their bodies seemed to be electrified from the contact. They had each craved it for longer than either realized.

She felt his Force signature envelop her, a question. She closed her eyes, permitting his memory to flow through her.

_The General was much younger, her hair a deep chestnut, her normally severe expression a jovial smile as she stared down at her young son._

_“Alright, you step forward with your right foot first, while I step backward with my left, okay? No more crushing my toes.”_

_“Dad, play the music!” An eager boy’s voice shouted. Young Ben Solo._

_Han shuffled over to the holonet receiver and found a music broadcast. “This work?”_

_Leia listened for a few seconds, checking the rhythm. “Alright.” She turned to Ben. “You lead this time. Count us off.”_

_Ben Solo confidently took several steps to the music, his mother following along, counting under her breath with him. After a few completed patterns, Leia asked, “Are you ready for some advanced hand movements now?”_

_"Geeze, don't you think you should let him master this first?” Han said._

_“But I've already got it!” Ben quipped._

_“See Han? He’s got it!” Leia laughed. “It’s good to know I’ve got a date whenever I need one!”_

The memory broke, but Ben’s eyes were now focused on Rey. Her heart had clenched at what she had experienced. Seeing three of the people she cared for most together, happy, alive, and whole sent a pang straight through her soul. Rey would cherish this memory, even if it wasn't hers to cherish.

The rawness of the memory stung him. He tried to keep the tremor from his voice as he spoke. “You've learned skills from entering my mind before. Do you think you can do this?”

She tightened her grip on him.  
  
"Left foot first?" she clarified, feeling her body take on old muscle memories that weren't formed in her own sinews. It reminded her of their fight on Starkiller when the Force had flowed through her with such intricate intention that she hadn't realized that she was moving through fighting forms that she had never learned before.

"Yes, but follow my lead. I'll start with my right, and you'll mirror me and step back. Then we’ll both step to the side together."  
  
His heartbeat swelled in the base of this throat as he took his first tentative dance step in years, willing her to feel, as he did, the rhythm his mother taught him long ago. She, he remembered, had to teach him step by step. They didn't have the time for such careful instruction, so he hoped his memories were enough to guide her.

Rey’s fingers clutched his shoulder for balance as she stepped her left foot back in time with his. His memory was still fresh in her mind and the tune that Han had played all those years ago buzzed through her.

She absently hummed the faint melody to herself without really realizing she was doing it. It was such a peaceful feeling, being connected however tangentially to a time and place before the war and the Dark Side and masks. It felt like the belonging she had waited for on Jakku.

Somehow, the steps came easily to her once the rhythm had taken root.

“It’s kind of like fighting forms without the lightsabers,” she mused.

“Yes, only considerably more dangerous.”

Ben felt her slip into the Force, into his memory. Her eyes closed as she focused, not watching her feet with trepidation as he had as a child learning to waltz, but calmly feeling a silent, remembered rhythm as she mastered the basic steps. Their combined Force signature felt like warm running water rather than the prickly static of their last Force connection on Crait, and if he weren’t currently transfixed watching her, he might have shut his eyes to bask in it, too.

“I think you’ve got the steps. Are you ready for the next part?” he asked a few moments later, halting their movements.

Her eyes opened, almost sleepily.  
  
“There’s a next part?” she asked, bemused.

“Oh yes,” he said. “We repeat this while spinning.”

“Now I see why it’s more dangerous than sparring,” she quipped with a chuckle.

“You doubted me?” he asked mock hurt in his voice. “Follow my lead.”

He locked his eyes on hers as they repeated the basic step together again, and then he whisked her to the side, using the Force to help her keep her balance as he twirled her around. Though she stumbled a bit at the suddenness of the turns, she quickly found the rhythm of her steps again.

Rey giggled as Ben spun her around, his hand warm and firm against her lower back. Actually giggled.  
  
The thought crossed her mind that she shouldn’t be enjoying herself. This was a mission. She was doing this to save the Resistance. She wasn’t here to have a good time. And yet...she couldn’t deny that she hadn’t felt this happy, this...light, in years. Maybe ever. She felt at ease in the arms of her enemy.  
  
She flinched at that word intruding. Ben’s arm tightened around her in a reflexive response, pulling her closer to his chest as they spun, so close that she couldn’t tell if it was her heart racing or his. She felt safe with this shadow man, this self proclaimed monster, this prince of smoke and blood. When had that happened?  
  
As the spiral loosened, she leaned back to look him in his bisected face.  
  
“Wasn’t there something about the arms?” she asked, dizzy and delirious.

As his breaths came out in light pants, he realized two things: first, that he had been so entranced by watching her laugh and smile that he forgot to breathe; and second, that their faces were very close, the closest they'd been since the elevator on the Supremacy. He noticed her lips were a bit redder than they had been before, perhaps due to the light, the exertion, or a light application of makeup, though he guessed it was likely a combination of the three. His eyes scanned her face, her heartbeat thrumming under his finger tips.

“I think so, but I can't remember right now,” he said softly. “I may need a moment to think.”

"Do you think we can stop spinning while you think? My feet are starting to hurt," she whispered.

She was utterly hypnotized and she couldn't extricate herself from the gravitational pull of his dark eyes on her face. Was he looking at her lips? He was so close...

Ben quickly jerked away. “They’re coming.”

He rushed over to the table and was able to pull his helmet on before a Stormtrooper burst through the door.

“Supreme Leader, Lord Shwa’rarth will be ready to announce you shortly.”

Rey felt the comfortable gentleness of their Force connection turn jagged, icy.

“TN-9139,” Ren said, his mechanical voice level, but full of rage. A warning. “I will join you in the hallway momentarily.”

Several other Stormtroopers pulled TN-9139 away, shutting the door behind them. The novice of the band dispatched to the ball, the 'trooper had forgotten the most important rule of serving the Supreme Leader: Always knock.

The cold fury rippled off Ben in waves.

“They almost saw us.”

Rey stumbled, struggling to regain her breath at the sudden loss of him as she turned her back. Sobriety returned with a vengeance and the panic with it. How could she have been so careless, so thoughtless? Stupid, foolish, naive, moonstruck yearling! To be wooed by a beautiful dress and a tall dark stranger whisking her through a girlish fantasy. She bit back the sting of tears as she pulled her glove back on.  
  
"So they almost saw us," she spat bitterly. "What does it matter if they see your face? It's your face! You should be able to show it when you want, you're the Supreme Leader!"  
  
She whirled at him, his rage icy in her veins as her long braid whipped against her bare back. She wanted to scream, to hit something, to shoot lightning from her fingertips if she could. But the second she saw him, struggling just as much as she was under his shadows and the cold chrome, the anger peeled away as she grasped for the light he had shone on her when they danced. She stepped forward, close once again, and reached up to him, cupping the blank metal visage in her hands.

"Oh, Ben," she murmured sadly. "This isn't you..."

The way she held his mask as if it were his face calmed all the anger, the fear that had coursed through him moments before. His body became still under her touch to the point that he resembled a grim statue for a moment before he composed himself enough to reply.

“You’re right. I can show my face whenever I want. But I haven’t shown my face freely since I became Supreme Leader, because I don't want anyone to see me as I am. It helps project an image, an illusion of power, certainly, but it is the only thing I have that is truly mine to give as I see fit.”

She could feel his eyes scan her from behind his visor, the impact of his words settling around them in the still room.

“For that reason, it matters that they don't see you behind your mask,” he said, the bassy mechanical voice almost a whisper. “Tonight, you are Viré Tasolis of Naboo. As soon as the ball ends tonight, Viré will die so that Rey of Jakku can make it back to the Resistance and begin to convince them that the First Order is going to be bearing down on their base sooner rather than later.”

He stepped away from Rey’s tender grasp, unable to face her. “Lady Viré of Naboo is expendable, but because of that, she is safe. If she makes an impression as anything other than an accessory, she might be lucky enough to become a beautiful fiction, but she not be missed when she vanishes. If it is known that the Supreme Leader showed his face to her and brought her into his deepest circle of confidence, Captain Phasma would surely be receiving a report. General Hux will receive a report. These Stormtroopers guard me, serve me, but they do not report to me. Lady Viré will become a legend, and Rey of Jakku may not be able to hide.”

He turned once more to face her, his head lowered. “I told you that I won't let you get hurt tonight, and I intend to keep that promise. If others in the First Order took an interest in you, in what happens tonight, I would do everything I could to protect you. But if they use you, harm you to get to me…”

The table on which his helmet had rested moments before began to buckle, as if it was suddenly supporting a crushing weight.

After a moment, he strode over to the table and snatched his left glove off the now cracked surface. “You're right. This isn't me. This is the monster I created.”

He considered his glove for a moment before sliding it on. “I now have to live with it. But I will not have you die by it.”

Rey sighed, finally understanding her true role in this masquerade. His shadow. She had unwittingly chosen the perfect disguise, wispy grays and cloudy blue-blacks shot through with silver. An apparition, a ghost, there and gone before anyone realized she'd ever been present.  
  
"If they're not supposed to notice me," she said quietly, "then I'll disappear. I'm good at that."  
  
With melancholy in her smile, she straightened her shoulders and set her chin, keeping her eyes on him, knowing that he could feel her determined gaze on his back.  
  
"After all, I'm nobody." She twisted her fingers around themselves. He moved to correct her, to argue, but her determination silenced him. "Lady Viré needn't be anyone either. I'll be your shadow, your extra pair of eyes." She smirked briefly. "I'll have your back."

He stood for a moment, deep in thought, but simply nodded, and offered her his arm.

“Shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took one ballroom dance class and learned in less than an hour that it wasn't for me.
> 
> I relearned this lesson while writing this scene.
> 
> Also, I let TheLadyoftheHouse design Rey's dress, because if it were up to me, it would be "Queen Amidala's Ceremony gown from TPM but make it goth" so yeah, no parasol collars thanks to her.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He offered her his arm as the doors snapped open one final time, letting the light from the ballroom flood into the dim foyer.
> 
> “It’s time.”

“Announcing: Supreme Leader Kylo Ren and Lady Viré Tasolis of Naboo,” the droid declared from the upper level of the ballroom, and many in the crowded room turned to watch the pair descending the staircase.

The Supreme Leader, looking like a grim phantom in a helmeted black mask and suit, escorted a young woman in a gown in shades of grey with loose, tousled brown hair. Her right arm rested lightly on top of his as they descended slowly, regally. The room seemed to hold its breath for an eternity until the two reached the first landing, walking to the center of the platform before turning to face the ballroom to begin the second half of their descent. The musicians did not dare to play more than a murmur.

Her head held high, Viré’s kohl-rimmed eyes barely seemed to notice the crowd beneath her. She looked down her nose, bored at the rabble. The helmeted face of Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, a harsh black and silver mask, seemed equally haughty despite its lack of expression. However, even though he donned a luxe suit and cape, he barely seemed human next to the elegant creature on his arm.

As they reached the final step, whispers quickly began to rise out of the hush that had fallen.

_That’s really him, the Supreme Leader? Is he always so frightening?_

_The Supreme Leader brought a guest? Is she also with the First Order?_

_Who is she? From Naboo? She doesn’t look like it._

_How long has it been since this galaxy had a leader who would mingle with folks like this? He has my respect._

_I would kill for that gown. Buy me one like that._

_She's not the queen, is she? I can't keep track these days._

Placing a gloved hand at the small of his date’s back, the Supreme Leader guided her away from the bottom of the staircase and over to greet the host, as if the enchanting entrance were nothing but an inconvenience, rather than the jaw-dropping performance it had been.

Once she felt the eyes of the crowd off of her, Rey let out of a sigh of relief.

 _You were amazing_ , Ben’s voice echoed in her thoughts, with a brightness that was foreign coming from him. _The hardest part is over._

She wished that were true.

 

 

As they strolled down the hallway toward the ballroom entrance to await their announcement, Rey felt Ben’s Force presence curling around her, an invitation. She answered, opening her mind and reaching out through the Force to him.

_Are you ready?_

She looked up at him, her face carefully schooled into her own mask of regal disdain. Then the corner of her mouth quirked up and she winked.

_Are you, Ben?_

He turned his mask to stare more intently at her.

_If it weren’t wearing this on my face, everyone in Canto Bight would be able to see that I’m completely dreading this._

Her eyes softened and she grasped his hand. She squeezed, reveling in the heat radiating off his palm.

_You promised me a dance, Ben Solo, and I will not be denied._

Rey smiled then. Her own smile, gentle and more loving than Ben felt he deserved.

_I’m here. You’re not alone._

In response, he opened his palm and curled his fingers to weave them with hers.

_It’s an honor I don’t deserve._

She blushed and turned back to look forward. Her side of the Force thrummed with joy and anticipation. With a straightening of her spine, she tilted her chin up to face their challenge.

They arrived in a grand foyer where other well-dressed couples stood waiting to be announced. They seemed bored, irritable, and took no notice of the imposing new arrivals. After checking in with a droid, the Supreme Leader and his date took a spot at the very end of the lineup. The guest of honor would, of course, be last.

As they waited, a wave of sorrow traveled between the pair through the Force.

_Rey, I’m sorry about all of this. I shouldn’t have brought you here if there was even a small chance that you could be recognized. I was selfish. I was so desperate to see you that I acted irrationally. I thought the risk was so minuscule that I was willing to take it. I shouldn’t have put you in this position._

Still clutching her hand, his facemask dropped forward, as if he were hanging his head in shame.

_I want you to know, it’s not too late for you to leave. I can summon Bazine and she will take you off-world before anyone sees you. I will honor my promise and destroy the information on your friends. I just...I couldn’t stand it if anything were to happen to you. I can handle this on my own from here. Please. I don’t want you hurt._

The doors opened, and the first couple in the lineup stepped out.

Rey turned a fierce stare on the shadow of Kylo Ren. Her mouth was set in a hard, determined line.

_You don’t want me hurt? Were you thinking that on Starkiller when you came at me with your saber and rage? Did you think that on the Supremacy when we fought side by side, fought harder than we ever have? You’ve seen my life on Jakku, you know I can handle myself. There is nothing in there that I can’t face._

He winced at the memory of his indiscretions when she was nothing but a powerful stranger to him. Her hand squeezed tighter. The second couple went through the door.

_And with you at my side, they won’t be able to stop us._

He held her small hand between both of his before turning to observe the scar on her shoulder, the one she had received from the Praetorian guards on the Supremacy. It was so very faint, but he could see the jagged outline above her black gloves. He traced a leather gloved finger along it.

_You said you could disappear into the crowd. Be my shadow. Become nobody. I don’t think you have looked at yourself. If you did, you would understand how impossible that is._

She shivered at his touch. He dropped his hand. Another couple exited the foyer.

_I will never disparage your ability to defend yourself, or me, if the need arises. I just hope that you should not need to tonight._

_Am I really so noticeable? I’ll need to try harder._

_Perhaps. But maybe it’s just because I can’t take my eyes off of you._

He turned his face to her. Through the mask, she could feel his gaze.

_Just for tonight, become Viré. Disguise your light. But you don’t have to hide. Never vanish again. You underestimate just what you are._

She bowed her head briefly, looking up at him with determination and something like love blazing in her golden eyes. Then her gaze returned to what was ahead of them.

_I won’t. I doubt you’d let me forget it._

Another couple entered the ballroom. He raised his right hand, his leather glove hovering just above the long braid down her back.

_May I?_

“What?” she whispered.

He tugged the black ribbon at the bottom of the plait, unraveling the knot that held most of her complicated hairstyle together. While he worked diligently with one hand to pull the pins from her scalp, his other hand gently began to gently comb through the braid, loosening her hair. It tumbled over her shoulders, slightly curled where it had been plaited.

Through the Force, he sent her a short memory.

_General Organa sat at a stool in front of her vanity, talking in a low murmur with her husband. Han Solo stood behind her, uncoiling her complicated Alderaanian hairstyle. It was late, and the couple was lit by the dim glow of a candledroid. They didn’t want any unnecessary light that would disturb their young son._

_Ben Solo watched them from his parent’s bed. He had been pretending to sleep. His mother seemed regal but tired. She had been in meetings for what seemed like days on end. He couldn’t quite remember the last time he had seen her, so he fought sleep to watch her get ready for bed._

_Han delicately tugged at every pin, careful not to hurt his wife. She closed her eyes, seeming to savor his handiwork as locks of warm brown hair came spilling down her back. Despite his usually carefree demeanor, Han seemed to be genuinely enjoying the task._

_After all of her long hair had fallen, Han sat the pins on the vanity and planted a kiss on the top of her head, leaving her to finish her nightly ritual._

_“Mommy, why does Daddy help you with your hair? Don’t you have droids?”_

_Leia smiled at her son. His curiosity had given him away._

_“I knew we couldn’t get lucky enough to actually have you asleep,” she said, chuckling. She walked over and sat on the bed next to him._

_“We do have droids, Ben, but when I was growing up on Alderaan, braids were very important. I was taught that the most loving thing your beloved can do for you is to take out your braids. It’s very special to me to have your father help. And I know he won’t say it, but I think he likes it, too.”_

_“So it’s a Mommy-Daddy thing?”_

_“Yes, it’s another one of those Mommy-Daddy things. But you’ll understand someday.”_

_He understood enough._

_“Mommy, tell me more about Alderaan.”_

_Leia beamed again, a radiant smile that seemed to brighten the room._

_“Only if you promise to go back to sleep after.”_

The memory broke just as the last couple in front of them entered the ballroom.

A tear ran unbidden down Rey’s cheek, her eyes wide and lips parted as she turned to look at the tall man wrapping her hair ribbon around his wrist. His skin was stark white between his glove and his sleeve and constellations of freckles haloed the bones of his arm. He had slipped the pins into his pocket without her even noticing. She could feel the gentle caress of his eyes on her face, her neck, her exposed shoulders. His Force signature felt like a racing heartbeat. Was it his? Or was it hers?  
  
_Ben...beloved?_ she whispered in her mind.

He cupped her face affectionately, his thumb lightly brushing the tear from her face.

They stood together, warriors about to enter a den of vicious beasts. Wearing his mask and kit as a suit of armor and his lady’s favor, the black ribbon tied around his wrist, the only thing he had to lose before the savage creatures that awaited them was her.

Shaking off his apprehension, he whispered, “Yes.”

He offered her his arm as the doors snapped open one final time, letting the light from the ballroom flood into the dim foyer.

“It’s time.”

He wrapped her in his tender Force presence as the droid announced their names, and they began to walk. Her heart felt like it was going to jump out of her throat. She could feel the eyes from the rest of the gala guests focusing on the two of them. From what she could see of the crowd in the dim light, there were likely several hundred finely dressed humanoids and aliens in the ballroom beneath them, the most elegant assembly of creatures she could imagine. In her peripheral vision, she could catch the light reflecting off of rare gemstones embedded in necklaces, brooches, bracelets, and hair pieces around them. In their shades of black and silver, she and Ben seemed to slink in and out of the shadows cast by the slats in the railing as they descended. Rey could tell he was pleased by this effect.

 _It’s not so bad,_ his voice purred in her mind.

_Not so bad? I don’t think I want to know what your idea of “awful” would look like._

In truth, it was the most people she had seen gathered in one place since she was able to glimpse the rows and rows of Stormtroopers standing in formation on Starkiller base. That time, however, she was running for her life from Kylo Ren.

Now, she had entrusted her life, as well as that of her friends and even the survival of the Resistance, to him.

But those below couldn’t possibly know that. They were gaping at the regal looking couple slowly making a grand entrance.

 _Breathe,_ he thought.

_I’m breathing just fine, thank you._

_Sorry. I was reminding myself._

Each step felt like she was falling gently, her stomach losing its purchase in her abdomen before her foot securely located the next step and the process began again. Her feet were sore, contorted out of position by the fashionable heeled shoes and dance lessons that were perhaps a little too intense, but she resisted the urge to look down at her feet, and instead felt through the Force for her footing. Recalling General Organa, she tried to make the most dignified face she could muster, combined with an air of superiority that was alien to the General’s features. She felt duplicitous carrying herself like a queen, but she remembered that she was not the scavenger from Jakku in this room; she was someone far more important. She had to act like it.

The staircase seemed to stretch on endlessly before them.

The enormity of this act began to dawn on Ben, though he had been far too occupied with planning to invite Rey in the days leading up to the gala and checking in on her the whole day to really analyze what he was doing. As far as he knew, Snoke didn’t attend events like this, nor did Darth Vader or the Emperor. The people below ranged from around Rey’s age to older than his mother, meaning that likely only a few had lived under the Empire. They only knew the face of the Emperor from the posters and images of him distributed throughout the galaxy. Vader they probably only knew of through furtive whispers and horrifying, but likely accurate, rumors. The same rumors, he knew, had been circling about him since he became Snoke’s apprentice.

He could only imagine what they’d be saying now.

These wealthy sycophants finally had a face to the legend, a real one, and he could feel their excitement like electricity in the Force. But it was a manufactured countenance. His real face was hidden. Each had its purpose. This one was serving its function perfectly.

They arrived on the first landing, the fabric of Rey’s gown hissing as it settled on the floor. Following Ben’s lead, they walked to the center of the landing before turning to face the crowd.

 _Halfway there,_ Rey thought.

_You’re radiant._

_Stop, you’ll make me laugh._

The light from the chandelier above glinted off of her hair and the circlet around her forehead. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ben was distracted by her, and she felt a swell of pride in her stomach. Picking up her skirts again, they began their final descent.

 _Almost there_ , he thought

The ballroom itself was dimly lit by a number of floating candle droids and strange lighting fixtures, giving the room a soft, amber glow. A typical example of Cantonican architecture, the high ceiling seemed curved, like a bubble encapsulating them. The staircase, which was attached to a large overhang on which an orchestra played, dominated one large wall of the room. The opposite wall was large curving glass windows and doors, opening up to a patio that gave a remarkable view of the Canto Bight caldera and sea, now swathed in darkness with flecks of colorful lighting.

Between the two was a large marble dance floor surrounded by a number of tables. Though some were seated, many guests remained standing or had risen to watch the announced guests.

Rey felt strong, powerful, under their gaze. She no longer felt the pain of her shoes, her anxiety at being watched. She stared back at the faces boredly. She had no reason to fear them.

She stopped thinking about the steps and floated down the rest of the way, not noticing they reached the bottom until she felt Ben’s other hand on her back, guiding her away from the center of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just made you read an entire chapter of people going down stairs.
> 
> Also, if you want help visualizing Rey's entrance, watch Violet Chachki's entrance at the Season 8 finale of RuPaul's Drag Race.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The First Order will not forget your hospitality.”

_Our hosts for tonight are Shwa’rarth and his wife, Kita’lis,_ Ben thought to Rey over a steadily growing din as the conversation amongst the other guests resumed now that the announcements were over. _Shwa’rarth comes from a long line of Nikto spice traders, they were small-time but had a lucrative, uncontested market for a while._

They stopped abruptly. Rey almost tumbled again as her shoes became tangled in her skirts, but with her arm on Ben, she was able to maintain her regal composure.

Supreme Leader Kylo Ren dipped his head at the Nikto couple in front of them.

“Shwa’rarth, Kita’lis,” his mechanical voice boomed. “Thank you for granting me an invitation. The welcome I have received on Catonica has been warmer than I could have hoped for.”

The Nikto couple bowed in unison at the appearance of their guest.

 _He and his brother were just teenagers when they found a way to invest in weapons distribution during the end of the Galactic Civil War,_ Ben’s mental commentary continued.

“The pleasure and honor both are mine, Supreme Leader,” Shwa’rarth loudly declared, not to be outdone by his guest of honor’s bassy voice and perhaps already a little inebriated. “Not many of us are native Catonicans, but we do love to show off our little gem here in the Outer Rim whenever possible.”

_Though they split the profits for years, his brother hasn't been seen in about half a decade._

Rey’s eyes flicked over to Ben’s mask, the briefest glance she could muster while struggling to keep the concern from her face.

 _Don't worry,_ he thought. _He’s not vicious enough to do it himself. He doesn't like to get his hands dirty. He didn't even plan the party._

_Then who did?_

“Kita’lis.” The Supreme Leader stepped forward suddenly offering his hand to the Nikto, who wore an elegant white gown with gold accents, highlighting the gold undertones in her thick red skin. Though Rey knew little of this species, she could tell that the full-figured, big-eyed Kita’lis was beautiful for her kind. “Permit me to say that you have exquisite taste. A more enchanting event than has ever been devised.”

_His wife. Well, third wife. Don't mention that part to her. She's very sensitive about it. I didn't get to talk to her much, but she is very young, new to this kind of wealth and status. She seems to enjoy being a socialite, though. It was his idea to throw the gala, but she was all too eager to put it on._

Kita'lis did a slight bobbed curtsy, cheekbones darkening prettily at the compliment.

_How do you know all this?_

_They told me earlier when I met with them. Back when I was supposed to be getting you._

_Ah._

_They seemed to have been telling the truth, though I didn’t look into their minds for further validation._

_Right, that’s just not proper etiquette for high-society functions._

Rey could sense Ben’s amusement behind his mask.

“Supreme Leader Ren, you do flatter me too much. I am still learning how to entertain high society, and your compliment certainly is kind.  Any positive reinforcement is appreciated,” Kita'lis said bashfully, surprising Rey with her girlish voice. She must have been Rey’s age, if not younger, but her husband was likely old enough to be her father.

“May I present to you my guest, Lady Viré Tasolis?” he gestured to Rey, who almost froze.

 _Ben, should I curtsy for them?_ she thought, panicked. _Am I above or below them?_

_Above. You do not have to humble yourself completely with a curtsy, but some acknowledgment would be proper._

Rey did so, bobbing into a half-curtsy.

_So I should compliment her on the party?_

_Exactly. You don't even need me to teach you these things._

_I don't need you for a lot of things._ Her thoughts seemed to scoff at him. _Though I would like you to know what you have told them in regards to my identity._

“It truly is a marvelous event. Once-in-a-lifetime, really,” Rey said, her voice was a bit stiff in her attempt to sound haughty rather than terrified. “I am grateful to have been invited.”

“Lady Viré, that is very high praise indeed,” Shawa’rarth said, voice dripping with enthusiasm. “You must have seen a number of fine galas in your time.”

Rey’s heart started to race. _Ben, what in the name of the Force have you told them about me?_

She felt nothing but boredom emanating off of him. _You come from an honorable family and served as a Handmaiden to a former queen of Naboo._

_Recently?_

_Not particularly._

“Indeed,” Rey said, standing up even straighter to disguise her unease. “But I can't recall the last one I enjoyed.”

That was obviously the right answer because the Nikto couple laughed boisterously.

 _What else did you tell them?_ Rey thought, not quite sure she was off the hook.

_Not much, but lots of implications._

_Go on._

As another couple approached the hosts, Ben prepared to duck away.

“I will take my leave of you. The First Order will not forget your hospitality.”

Shwa'rath beamed. “I will find you when it is time for your toast.”

“You have my thanks.” Ben dipped his head in acknowledgment before leading Rey away, allowing a pair of Abednedos to assume their former positions.

 _Naboo Royal Handmaidens are fascinating to many in the galaxy,_ Ben thought as they began a slow stroll to the edge of the room. _They perform a number of roles beyond just serving and dressing the queen. They have been known to serve as decoys for them, bodyguards. Spies. You name it, there has been a Naboo Handmaiden in history who has done it._

_So that's what you meant by “implications.”_

The noise in the ballroom had grown considerably since the announcements as guests early resumed mingling, but Rey was grateful that Ben’s low voice in her mind seemed to rise above the chatter as she struggled to follow him.

_Yes. As you are portraying a former Handmaiden, you are granted a degree of detached secrecy, because there will always be things you cannot say in order to protect the Royal House of Naboo. The mythos of the Naboo Handmaidens will also mean that no one will quite know what you are capable of, and will be quite reluctant to try your patience._

_That's certainly appreciated._  

_The others will have little reason to doubt Lady Viré's reason for joining me._

_Why is that?_

Rey felt Ben’s sudden discomfort. _Because Naboo was my grandmother’s homeworld. She was a Queen._

She struggled to wrap her mind around how an Alderaanian queen could be from Naboo, but then she put the pieces together: Vader’s wife.

_Oh._

This was better, she believed, than being considered an Imperial cultist, but she felt a pang of sorrow, of kinship for the woman. Loving someone that deep on the dark side must have taken a toll on her. Still, Rey couldn’t help but feel an odd flutter of delight knowing that Ben had chosen her identity based on someone so important to him.

Ben halted abruptly in an alcove under the orchestra loft.

 _Who are we talking to now?_ Rey thought, trying not to let him sense any lingering annoyance.

 _No one._ Ben gestured to a table behind him. _I thought you might be hungry._

Rey realized that, due to Bazine’s liberal application of the gas, she didn't actually remember the last time she had eaten, but the last thing she had consumed was tea over two hours ago. The spread of small plates in front of her made her stomach knot in a familiar pain she had become skilled at ignoring over her years of hunger in Jakku. Though the Resistance fed her well, she could barely recognize some of the exotic, tantalizing scents in front of her.

“Eat,” he said, gesturing to the table.

_But what about you?_

_I can't eat here._

_Why not?_

He tapped his helmet with his index finger.

She rolled her eyes. Well, of course, she knew  _that_ part _Ben, aren't you hungry?_

_I will be fine. I will have a plate sent to my room later. Please, Rey. Don't worry about me._

She grabbed a plate and served herself a few of the smaller delicacies, ones that would not draw attention to her table manners, which she knew were far from refined and nowhere near the gentility expected of a Handmaiden. When she had joined the Resistance, she quickly became aware of how crude some of her eating habits were. Many of her fellow Resistance members, especially Finn, had been kind and encouraging, modeling proper dining etiquette without scolding her or mocking her for behaviors that indicated a lack of proper breeding.

However, all of her current failings were to be highlighted in this setting. Especially the novelty of certain utensils. She was skilled with a knife, at least, though knives weren’t necessary for the small bites served at the banquet table. However, given the state of her long black gloves, she knew that using her hands was completely off-limits. She was generally pretty adept with a fork, but could only hope she didn’t do anything that was too distractingly impolite.

After backtracking through the room and locating their assigned seats at the head table near the dance floor, Ben pulled out a chair for Rey to sit. At first, she was startled by the gesture, one she thought was meant to mock her, until she realized his intent was pure, mannerly. She tried to relax slightly; the room may have been full of judgmental presences, but Ben was not one of them.

Noticing that Ben’s thoughts had been silent for a few moments, she used her Force presence to brush gently against him, reopening the line of communication.

_Thank you._

_My pleasure._

He took a seat beside her, his figure imposing despite its now reduced height. She realized just out of place he looked in this environment despite his elegant suit, how monstrous his helmet seemed compared to the refined guests.

Rey ate slowly, carefully, pretending to be at once delicate and judgmental as she watched and modeled her own eating off of others. If Ben had noticed anything unusual about her eating habits, the Force reflected none of it, which was reassuring to her. Seeing that the Supreme Leader was now seated, the curious guests seemed to venture closer to them, with several even greeting the Supreme Leader with formal bows and curtsies while Rey continued to eat.

 _Do you know anyone here besides the host?_ Rey thought between bites. 

_Not at all, though I am aware of some of them. The very loyal ones. General Hux was very determined to brief me for this event._

_Helpful._

_The Force helps me with the rest._

A mechanical voice behind Rey broke their connection.

“Lady Viré, please come with me,” a droid said. “You have been sent for.”

Rey’s blood briefly turned ice cold, before she saw Ben nodding his helmet at her in encouragement. She pushed back her chair and rose. The silver protocol droid ushered her to a small alcove in the staircase where there was a hidden door.

The door opened, revealing a Stormtrooper. Rey’s stomach lurched in fear momentarily, and just as quickly relaxed.

“I brought these for you, my lady,” the young ‘trooper said proudly, presenting her with her brown boots. “You can change in here.”

She sighed, relieved, and stepped through the small entrance to the access corridor. With the protocol droid blocking the view of the ballroom, she was able to untangle her aching feet from the black strappy nuisances and slide into her familiar, comfortable shoes. After puffing out her skirts to cover her feet again, she felt proud of her deception, certain that no one would be the wiser.

She thanked the ‘trooper, and turned back to the ballroom, though he stopped her one last time.

“My lady, I think you forgot this in your room.” He handed her what seemed to be a small datapad, no larger than her hand. “It was sitting on the dresser. You might need it.”

She tried and failed to dispel her confusion as she replied. “Oh...thank you.”

“My pleasure, Lady Viré.”

Rey nodded stiffly at him, and quickly walked away, hoping he hadn’t noticed her unfamiliarity with the device.

Though he had been talking to another two guests when Rey returned, the Supreme Leader rose and pulled her chair out for her again.

“We have seen the benefits of the First Order on Coruscant,” a man with slicked-back dark hair said, continuing what Rey assumed was a series of brown-nosing compliments. “Your leadership has been critical to imposing law and order on...shall we say, the lesser rabble of our world. Ours is a planet that would benefit from an even stronger First Order presence, in fact.”

The man’s companion peered across the the table at her and at the device in her hand.

“Thinking about your dance card, Lady Viré?” asked the younger, blonde man, in a manner that was exceptionally warm to the point of almost flirtatious. “Save one for me, alright?”

“Oh yes, of course,” Rey said, in what she hoped was an authoritative yet mildly disinterested tone. Though he had seemed comfortable enough to address her by name, she did not feel comfortable around this man; certainly not comfortable enough to dance with him.

“I’m Aric Soruta,” he said, extending a hand to her. Rey hesitated, but offered one of hers limply to him. He kissed it, which would normally be a formal, polite gesture, but he seemed to lack the elegance for brevity, and she swore she felt a little bit of his saliva leak through her glove. She tried not to cringe.

“A pleasure,” she said.

She felt a small crackle in the Force: anger coming from Ben.

“My brother and I are working for our father’s construction business,” he said proudly. Rey nodded, looking vaguely interested, but toyed with a small meat pastry with her fork.

“We have managed several properties on Coruscant and other Inner-Rim worlds, and are looking to expand into other corners. We believe we can supply house and utilities for the First Order.”

“I have spoken to your brother Dwane about your business in great detail,” Ben interjected, his mechanical voice cold. “We will have to speak another time.”

“Good,” Aric said, oblivious to the seething hatred pooling off of the masked figured across from him. “I was just telling Lady Viré about our father’s work and how it might interest the First Order.”

“Yes, I’m sure the Supreme Leader is most interested,” she said, wondering if Ben was as repulsed by these men as she was.

She felt for his Force signature. He was.

“Yes, it is perfectly worthwhile for me as the Supreme Leader to discuss the minutiae of planetary infrastructure with a couple of boy heirs,” he said curtly. “I can think of no better waste of my time.”

The brothers looked taken aback by the Supreme Leader’s boldness, though Rey knew neither could sense the true cause of it.

He offered some dismissive comments to the brothers, who soon after bowed and headed off in the direction of the bar. Rey’s thoughts gently rattled at his.

_They were dull as dirt, but was that entirely necessary?_

_Yes,_ Ben thought. _The older one has schemes for power, influence. The younger one had schemes for you._

Rey shuddered. She could tell Ben was glossing over the worst of it.

 _I hope you didn’t actually give him your dance card,_ Ben thought, his anger slowly beginning to subdue.

 _Dance card? Is that what this is?_ The small screen was blank except for the date and occasion entered in at the top, then a blank numbered list that she could scroll through. 

_Yes, it’s how you reserve dance partners. Shwa’rarth thought you’d like one. I’d left it in your room but then I completely forgot about it._

_I don’t think I’m ready to dance with any other partners._ Her pulse bobbed in her chest; the illusion, the fantasy they had constructed around her was at once both an escape and a prison. Ben took the device from her.

_You don’t have to dance with anyone you don’t want to._

His fingers flew over the device, and he handed it back to her.

_But you did say that I owe you one, so I claim the first dance with my date._

She looked at the screen. The first item on the list was PARTNER: SUPREME LEADER KYLO REN.

 _Good. I like it when you keep your word,_ she thought, unsure whether her comment was coming from Rey or Lady Viré.

“Lord Ren.” Shwar’rarth appeared suddenly behind them, bowing quickly. “I was preparing to give my opening statement. If you’ll give the toast?”

“Naturally,” Ren said, rising. “Lady Viré, don’t forget to help yourself to a drink when you finish eating. We wouldn’t want you to be empty handed for the toast.”

He gave her a quick bow, and sent her a brief Force message before disappearing with the Nikto. _I’ll be right back. Don’t worry._

She did not like being alone in this atmosphere, and this was the second time she had been without him in the hour. Ignoring the hungry gazes of the gossipy socialites, she headed to the bar to grab a long-stemmed glass of some bubbly green drink from a tray. She tried to look aloof and disinterested to avoid being approached by the others as she scanned the room for Ben.

“Hey Lady,” a high-pitched voice lilted beside her. Kita’lis, also grasping a glass of the drink, came over to her. “Still having a good time?”

Her manner, unlike that of many of the guests, was familiar, casual. Rey felt, strangely enough, like she could relax in front of the young Nikto, maybe drop her walls a bit.

“I suppose so. It really is beautiful in here,” she said, gesturing to one of the decorative banners hoisted by a metal pole that circled the dance floor nearby. “You really have a great sense for entertaining.”

“Oh, hush. Picking the decor is the easy part. I want to make sure my guests are having fun,” she said, jabbing a finger at Rey. “And might I say, Viré, you don’t seem to be having fun.”

Rey tried to protest, but Kita’lis cut her short.

“Hey, the others may not see it, because they’re so mystified by the Supreme Leader and the Lady of Naboo, but I could tell from the way you strolled over here,” she said. “No one having a good time seems that disappointed to be going to a bar.”

Rey sighed, the first genuine expression of emotion she had produced since her entrance into the ballroom, and looked at Kita’lis. She maintained her proud demeanor, but let some honest sorrow fill into her eyes. “It’s not easy being the date of the Supreme Leader.”

“I can imagine not,” Kita’lis said, taking a large swig of the green liquid. “You are doing an admirable job.”

She lowered her voice conspiratorially, and touched her free hand to Rey’s gloved wrist. “I know he’s a powerful man, if he’s a man at all,” she whispered. “But if you are afraid for your safety, you come to me. I'll look after you I promise”that

From the first landing of the staircase, Shwa’rarth clapped his scaly hands to call the room to attention. Rey saw what she thought was genuine concern in the Nikto’s eyes. She nodded silently, and with a return nod of acknowledgement from Kita’lis, the two turned to watch the proceedings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first had the idea for this story, I never would have guessed it would have gotten this far. I assumed by now I would have given up because I lack discipline as a writer and as a person. 
> 
> "Get yourself beta readers who push you into breaking your bad habits and/or resort to threats against your family" is the moral here.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You demanded a dance of me?”
> 
> Rey stared up at him with as much force as she could muster, a fake and saccharine smile bejeweled on her sweet face. Beneath it, she was boiling with rage. 
> 
> “I did indeed, Supreme Leader,” she said, her voice low and dangerous as she set her glass down.

“My honored guests, my treasured friends, welcome, welcome, welcome!” Shwa’rarth’s voice easily carried down the stairs and to the assembled guests. Though his speech was clear, Rey was certain now that alcohol had played some role in his confidence.

“For those of you attending my annual gathering for the first time, I hope you find all is to your liking. For those of you who are joining me yet again at my humble home for another night of merriment, I say: I can’t believe you came back!”

Polite laughter rippled through the crowd.

“This year has seen many changes; notably, my beautiful wife, Kita’lis. Kita, where are you?”

The way he looked around the room, completely unable to detect his wife who was loitering near the bottom of the steps, reminded Rey just how old he was. Kita’lis raised her glass with ambivalence to signal to her husband.

“Shwar?” she shouted after her waving failed to get his attention.

“Ah, yes! My Kita! She is as beautiful as she is brilliant. We met at this exact affair last year, and she has been by my side ever since. Those of you who were at our wedding know how much I love having her in my life. Can you believe she planned this whole thing by herself? Let’s give her a round of applause!”

The other guests indicated their approval. Kita only nodded, not particularly enjoying the attention.

“As you know, there have been other, grander changes taking place in the galaxy that affect each and every one of us. Now you all know I don’t like getting political, but these are interesting times for many of us.”

Several murmurs of agreement rose from the ballroom.

“Business is strong in many sectors. Profits have risen, and the oversight of New Republic has been, well…” His smile was almost sinister. “Lacking. This has created a great opportunity, and I know that opportunity will only continue to grow into dividends.”

Rey suppressed a shiver. Shwa’rarth continued.

“I had the pleasure lately of making the acquaintance of the Supreme Leader of the First Order, an organization that is pivotal to my business, as I’m sure it is to many of yours, as well. And you know how I feel about making speeches.”

Another smattering of sociable chuckles.

“So this year, I will leave the toast of the night to Supreme Leader Kylo Ren. My lord?”

Ren stepped forward, inviting the whole hall to take in the ghastly sight of him.

“Many of you do not know me,” he began, his voice modulator seeming, if at all possible, louder than usual. “Many of you have heard about me, but all of you know the First Order in one way or another. You know our might. You know our mission, and of course, many of you are familiar with our means.”

Rey’s blood froze. He continued.

“You supply our ships, our weapons. Yours are tools of destruction and the tools of peace. The war we are fighting is an inconvenience, but have the utmost confidence that the First Order can crush any rebellions it faces with vigor and determination.”

His face seemed to scan the transfixed crowd. No canned laughter. No polite applause. The guests were all entranced or terrified, hanging on his words.

“This is my promise to you: the First Order will prevail. We will remain firm in our mission, and our determination to bring peace and stability to the Galaxy in ways the New Republic experiment couldn’t imagine. We will stamp out the insurrection, lawlessness, and terror that fragment our society.”

She wasn’t sure she was breathing. She wasn’t sure if she could still exhale.

“When we have expanded our reach and gained better control, we will not forget what you have done for us. You will not be abandoned or in want. You will thrive as we do, prosper as the First Order prospers, and be the seeds that grow a new Galactic Empire.”

She could see from his gestures, his postures, that he was the son of General Organa. An awful bastardization of everything she stood for, but with her spirit and confidence. Rey hated him for it.

“Now, a toast.” Shwa’rarth handed him a glass, which he lifted high. The guests below followed suit.

“To prosperity, to the future, and to a brighter galaxy.”

The crowd repeated in unison. Some clinked their glasses together, while others consumed their drink without hesitation. Rey was among the latter, tipping her head back to imbibe the whole glass in one mighty gulp. She hadn’t been able to force herself to utter those hateful words.

The drink was strong and acrid. She hated how it burned her nose, her throat, her stomach. And yet, it was sweeter than the words that were still stinging in her ears.

She wanted to disappear. She couldn’t face Kylo Ren. She didn’t know where Ben Solo ended and where the Supreme Leader began, but she was exhausted by his tricks, by his deception. She had to get away.

At that moment, Shwa’rarth waved his hands to calm the chatter that had arisen following the toast. Kita’lis had appeared by his side.

“My friends, thank you for your rapt attention,” he bellowed. “Now, if you will join me, I believe it is time we began with the dancing.”

Rey wondered if it was possible for her to slink into the crowd, to rescind her invitation to dance with Ben, but before she could turn around and book it for the balcony, she was caught in the gaze of that grim death mask.

Kriff.

The shadowy figure descending the stairs headed right for her. She had to face him, but with the conflicting emotions roiling within her, she wasn’t yet sure how.

He offered her his hand. “You demanded a dance of me?”

Rey stared up at him with as much force as she could muster, a fake and saccharine smile bejeweled on her sweet face. Beneath it, she was boiling with rage. 

“I did indeed, Supreme Leader,” she said, her voice low and dangerous as she set her glass down. Were an outsider to observe them, they would have no inkling of the taut thread stretched and thrumming between them.  
  
Through their bond, however, a storm was raging. She took the proffered hand, practically digging her fingernails into his knuckles. She did not hold back her disgust through the bond, but kept her silence, too infuriated to speak coherently. If he wanted to explain himself, let him, she had had enough of his logic.

He lead her to the dance floor. He could feel the wrath, the loathing billowing off of her through the Force, and he was almost stunned. This anger she felt was tainted with darkness. This was not his Rey.

From the balcony above the orchestra began to play. He bowed his invitation.

“My lady.” He was curt but polite in response to the roiling in the Force.

Rey curtsied, the movement sharp enough to cut. When her eyes came back up, her partner could practically feel them burning holes through his helm. 

“My lord Ren,” she bit out, a polite little barb aimed straight for the softest spot of him. He was Kylo now, so she would call him as such.

His teeth gnashed. Behind his visor, heat rose in his cheeks as he concealed his hurt and confusion with anger of his own. He offered her his left hand as he gazed down at her. Though her face looked placid, he could not ignore the seething rage making her eyes seem darker.

He brushed a second invitation through the Force to her, an icy gust meeting her hot anger.

_I see you enjoyed my toast._

The liquor seethed in her stomach, blooming into a thorny flower in the darkness of her veins.   
  
He reached out to take her waist, his large hand spanning upward onto her bare skin. The leather glove was warm and the hand beneath it trying to be gentle. She loathed it. She was too hot, as if electricity of a different sort was barreling through her. How dare he touch her like that after spewing such hateful things? He was supposed to be trying to make the galaxy better, right? Wasn’t that the sweet poison he’d fed her?

Her hand on his shoulder dug in, her thumb pressing on the point where her mark crossed his collarbone. She refused to respond to him; instead, she let her anger pour over through the bond. He’d get the message.

He flinched as her nails pinched the sensitive scar tissue where she had tried to cleave him in half. She had succeeded more than he had liked to admit.

Now that they were in position, he began the first step of the waltz, feeling through the Force to the other couples, making sure he was performing dance properly in time with the crowd. Thought a few watched from the edges of the dance floor, many were too occupied in their own movements to pay more than passing attention to the First Order phantom and his lady wraith.

Ben tried to reach over the bond to Rey again. He was met with a wall of fire. She was listening, certainly, but giving him nothing.

He swept her to the side in a rush of skirts and legs past another couple. She kept up with his motions, however stiffly and mechanically.

 _It means nothing to you that I didn't write it_ , he thought. _I still spoke the words._

The gloved hand moved higher up, sliding obscenely against her bare back as they spun around the other couples. Her gaze remained focused on the place where his eyes should have been, unwavering in her intensity.

_I am more comfortable with masks than you might ever be, and that’s more my shame than yours. I introduced you to this world of deception; you didn’t choose it for yourself. I can’t expect the falsehoods to come as naturally to you as they do to me. They aren’t a part of you._

He did not let her see the way his knees had buckled, the way he staggered, missing a step. Regret caused him to lose footing, but he hoped she was too furious to notice. Taking a cue from the other dancers, he let go of her hand and placed his on her waist, lifting her into the air briefly before setting her down again and resuming their waltz. She dug her fingers again into his jacket as he lifted her, so easily, as if she was nothing.

 _You know, after I saw you that last time on Crait, I tried to see if our Force bond still worked,_ he thought into the flaming anger _. I wondered if Snoke really was connecting us, controlling us. Would it work again with him dead? Or had it worked that final time because of proximity?_

Her wall of fire flared at him. She let go of him as she spun away and around him, mimicking the other women on the dance floor. She tried to catch her breath in the sudden loss of his oppressive heat. She had to nearly force herself back into his gravitational pull, suppressing the shiver that accompanied his hand returning to its place on her back. Her eyes set back on his masked face, full of searing hatred.

He held her again. She clung to his hand, his shoulder, willed herself to feel every last inch of his fingers against her skin.

He felt as if she were trying to tear him apart with only her hands. If such a feat could have been accomplished, he would have not only allowed it but relished it.

His heartbeat picked up as the music swelled, the strings screeching as the melody pitched higher.

 _I see now,_ he thought.

He raised his hand so she could whirl underneath his arm, flow through his own ignited fire. He spun her to face him again. He could feel the heat of her gaze on him.

His grip on her waist tightened in response as they spun faster and faster in time with the music's dying wail. As the last notes of the waltz rippled out across the dance floor, he took a step back. Around them, couples began to separate and signal to one another the dance had ended. Ben dipped into a low bow, the blood red of his cape lining glinting off the silver around his jaw, making his inhuman visage even more sinister.

He stood upright, his visor rising to meet her eyes.

_You severed the bond. You were blocking me out._

Rey stiffened, her fury pouring like lava down her spine as she went rigid into her curtsy. It was achingly correct, her back straight as an arrow as she dipped low, her voluminous skirts pooling out around her like a misty lake, its depths dark with secrets and hidden rage. She lowered her chin to her chest, breaking his gaze. When she rose to her full height again, still only coming to his shoulder, she affixed him with her own glare, haughty as a queen. Then she swept past him, the edge of his cloak just brushing against the skin of her upper arm.

She made for the tall glass doors that opened out onto a wide balcony into the cooling evening. The air inside was too hot, too thick with expensive perfumes and exotic flowers. She needed to breathe real air.

Ben followed at a pace that would seem casual enough to disguise that something was amiss but authoritative enough that even if his date’s departure seemed irregular to any watching guests, he would seem in control of the situation.

The balcony was nearly empty when he emerged through the doors, with several couples avoiding the dancing on benches and in other nooks that empowered private conversations over the low hum of the music and chatter inside. Rey had likewise taken to a corner near one of the staircases that lead to a second patio below.

She had her back to him when he came up behind her, the thin black straps of her gown crisscrossing her pale skin, teasing him with its smooth expanse. Her arms were spread wide as she leaned on the railing overlooking the quiet sea. She had removed her long black gloves. Everything about her was tense. She was waiting for a fight.

A breeze carried from over the sea, rustling his cape around him as he made his silent approach.

“You severed our Force connection,” he said, his altered voice a low grumble. “Why?”

In response, Rey didn't hold back. She buffeted him with everything she had felt on the Supremacy, on Crait; the rage, the despair, the disappointment, the grief, all in staggering amounts. She could still recall how wave after wave had washed over her, threatening to pull her down into that Dark place again. Seeing him again had broken her heart. Closing the door to him, on the Falcon and in their minds, had been the only way she could escape the agony.

So, yes, she had shut him out.

But she had felt those little prods from across the galaxy, like needles scraping across her raw flesh. She continued to ignore them as she bled. 

She had closed the door on him, but he had left his mark on her. She felt it all alone, agonizing over him as she waited for sleep.

“I see,” he said to her back, words colliding with the cascade of memories. It felt like the barrage of fists against his chest in the hallway earlier, her frustration, her rage, her pain taking turns pounding against him and he had to brace himself against its impact. He was glad she couldn’t see the pain that swept through his expression this time.

 _I tried so many times to reach you. A few times I saw glimpses of you before the connection would end. Then I couldn’t find you at all._ He approached cautiously, as if terrified another wave might erupt from her small figure and knock him flat on his back.

 _I didn't know if you were dead or alive._ He sounded pathetic again, he knew it. He hated himself for it. But he couldn’t bear her ire, however much he had deserved it. _I just wanted to know you were safe._

She finally snapped at that, whirling to face him, eyes blazing, the embodiment of a vengeful war goddess. The wall of fire parted, flaring out as she screamed, her face not betraying a moment of her fury.

_SO YOU HUNTED ME DOWN ACROSS THE GALAXY, PUT SURVEILLANCE ON ME AND MY FRIENDS, AND KIDNAPPED ME?!_

She took a step closer to him, her rage a cloud that threatened to consume him.

_YOU ARE MY ENEMY, KYLO REN! YOU ARE THE SUPREME LEADER OF THE FIRST ORDER! AS LONG AS YOU RULE, I WILL NEVER BE SAFE!_

He reached out for her arm with his gloved hand, an attempt at apology, at consolation. At damage control. She jerked away from his touch, then shot out her own hand for him, grabbing his forearm and digging her nails in.  If this was going to be the last time she touched him, she wanted to remember it, to take it with her into war, to die with it tattooed on her nerve endings. If it was the only part of him that she could truly have, she would keep it forever.

She returned her gaze to him, some of the blazing ire having dissipated. It had been replaced with smoldering, quiet anger that had been slowly burning in her core for weeks.

“You are so concerned for my safety, yet you are the source of every danger that I face. You preach order in the galaxy, yet you can scarcely control your own emotions.”

She paused, tears stinging behind her eyes, and released his arm from her grip.

“You call me beloved...yet you have no heart to feel with. You are a hypocrite, Kylo Ren. A broken man hiding behind a mask. And we are both fooling ourselves if we think that we...that we could ever be more.”

His heart, empty and tragic as it was, sank. As he felt the fire of her anger in the Force cool to an electrical surge of ire, he could only laugh. A real laugh, low and sinister, emanated from his mask. It chilled her to her bones.

“You’re correct about a lot of things,” he said, his voice a demonic rumble. “I am a heartless, broken man behind this shell. You try to use that to attack me, as if I don’t already know what I am, what I have been made to be. You have seen me. Seen to the very core of me. So tell me: is any of what you accused me of supposed to hurt me?”

He turned his visor to meet her eyes again, this time returning her heat with his own. His hand shot out and gripped her upper arm, a little more forcefully than he had earlier when she had tripped over her shoes. He pulled her with him as he stormed down the stairs. Her skin burned where he touched her, his grip like iron around her bicep so she couldn’t escape him. His words echoed, harsh and bitter, within her skull.

_You were right about me, but you’re wrong in this: if I were truly the commanding and powerful Supreme Leader that you believe me to be, then I would have no need for the First Order, this ball, any of it. Do you think I have personally orchestrated all the misfortunes to befall the Resistance? That I alone am tracking your friends?_

Reaching the empty lower patio, he finally released her arm and turned to face her. Removing his helmet, his dark eyes looked mournful as they scanned her face, but his own face was determined. Battle-weary.

“I am your enemy,” he said. “It is the nature of what I am; you walk in the light, I am your opposite in darkness. But if you think anything I have done since you closed that bond was out of a desire for vengeance, a willingness to harm you, then you don’t know me as well as you might think.”

“Then why?” she begged, her own heart rending. “Why are you tormenting me? Tormenting yourself? Toying with this...this hope? Opening old wounds? It's unbearable.”

Her voice broke. “Why can't you just leave me be? Give me some measure of peace?”

Her desperate pleas radiated through the Force. He tried to hide how much power she had over him, how he suddenly felt weak like he might collapse under the weight of her despair.

“On the Supremacy the last time I saw you face to face, I asked you to join me. And you...you were the only thing I had left to lose.”

She could hear the fear, the sorrow, rippling through his voice. She had heard it quaver like that before, as the world burned around them.

“I offered the only thing I had left to give you. And you turned away. What peace was that?”

He took a step closer to her. She had turned back to look at the ocean, anything to keep from seeing the pain in his eyes or hear the betrayal in his deep voice. Her own guilt opened its wretched maw inside her, hollowing out the place under her ribs.

“Maybe I lied. This night will be the only thing I am doing to intentionally harm you because I selfishly wanted to see you one more time,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper.

He spun her to face him again, his large hands spanning her waist, holding her in place while he said his piece. She could feel the fire of his gaze on her and the unending heat radiating off of him.

“When I formed a plan to find you, to spend this one final night by your side, I didn’t realize that everything about me causes you anguish,” he panted, his voice cutting. She realized his sudden roughness was marked not with anger, but pain.

“You’re hurt by what I am, compared to who you wish I could be. I have seen your mind as you have seen mine. I know what you think: how easy it could be for me to reject the darkness and join you in the light. But do you think for one second I could have walked off that crashing ship with you? I could have, what, gone to the Resistance and expected them to welcome me with open arms?” His voice sounded desperate, almost maddened.

He released his grip on her waist and turned away, putting distance between them.

“You are the only one in years who has tried to see me for more than just a scion of Lord Vader, the nephew of Skywalker, the son of Organa and Solo. As all of those things, and yet more than the sum of them.”

He turned back to her, the fiery pain that had driven him cooled into an ember. His voice grew softer, quieting almost too soft to hear over the low rush of the ocean waves below or the music bellowing behind them, in a ballroom that suddenly felt far away.

“I wanted to be that person one more time.”

Rey wanted nothing more than to stop, to shed all of their masks, to hold him close until the galaxy faded away.

“Ben,” she whispered her voice a mere hum in the roiling emotions in their minds. He closed his eyes as his name washed over his exhausted soul; from her lips, it sounded like a precious, holy thing.

“I never wanted any of this to begin with. The Resistance, the Force, the Jedi, the First Order? I was going to live and die in the desert, untouched by all of it. If I hadn't found that droid, I never would have been pulled into all of this. I never would have awakened in the Force, found the Resistance, gone to Ahch-to...met you.” She shook her head minutely as she stepped slowly toward him. “Maybe we all would have been better off if I was never part of the equation.”

She was rambling now, and she knew it, trying to come to the point that she was also trying stubbornly to skirt. She looked up at him, pleading with her eyes for him to understand.

“You were right. I'm nobody from nowhere, a sad little girl waiting for a family that abandoned her. I was never meant to be a part of this story. But then you offered me the galaxy, a place by your side, ruling over it all. I...I had to say no, because I didn't want that.”

She took a deep breath and reached for his hand, holding it between hers, so small in comparison to his.

“Ben...all I wanted was you. You know me better than I know myself. You have been there, with me, through all of it, even if I didn't realize it. You know better than anyone what I've been through. I felt...I feel that sense of belonging with you. I wanted more than anything to belong with you, to run away to a part of the galaxy where nobody could find us. But I knew that we couldn't. You couldn't leave the Order and I couldn't leave the Resistance. Maybe one day we will, maybe that day will never come.”

She squeezed his hand, softer this time. He gave a defeated squeeze back.

“I would rather be nobody with you, than somebody without you. For all the sum of our broken parts,” she murmured.

He withdrew his hand from hers. Setting his helmet down on the ground, he tugged off both gloves, letting them fall at his feet. He gently slid a thumb along her cheek and down her jaw, holding her face close, her skin tingling at his touch.

“I feel that belonging, too.”  His voice was gentle and she raised her eyes to his. “And if I could, I would make it so you never had to be alone again.”

He rested his other hand on her lower back, fingers entwining with the fabric, willing her to never leave his grasp.

“You will never be a nobody, Rey.”

She nearly sobbed from the tenderness of his touch, leaning into his warm, smooth palm.

“Don't make promises we both know can't be kept,” she breathed, the air sticking in her lungs.

“Just give me tonight,” she said as her skirts flared around her like a cloud of smoke in the sea breeze. She reached up to him, delicately tracing the scar where it crossed his cheekbone down to his jaw, mimicking his touch on her face. At first he flinched, surprised by the intimate gesture, then seemed to melt under her touch. “Promise me that tonight, I belong to you.”

He took a step back to take in all of her, his eyes full of yearning.

“If you don’t want me to make promises I can’t keep, I will promise you only this.”

He pressed his forehead against hers. Neither dared to breathe as the reality of their closeness, their physical intimacy, began to dawn on them.

“Tonight, I am yours,” he whispered.

The Force seemed to hold them in that embrace for a long, somber moment. He eventually broke the spell and pulled back, his eyes darting to her mouth. Her gaze met his, a silent agreement, her heart racing, jumping into her throat. He pulled her closer at the waist and leaned in.

The music grew suddenly loud as the doors burst open from the ballroom and chorus of inebriated voices erupted out on the balcony. The pair quickly broke apart at the sound of those fleeing the dancefloor above them. A silent apology passed from Ben to Rey as he picked up his helmet and pulled it back on, his frustration tangible. He stooped over to pick up his gloves and started to put them back on before thinking better of it. He took her hand in his, letting the comfort of her touch, her forgiveness envelop him.

“We should get back,” she said, running her thumb over his knuckles. “They’ll be wondering where we went. Or probably coming up with something scandalous for the former Handmaiden to be doing with the Supreme Leader.” She smirked, trying to sound casual to mask the way her heart was pounding. “What would Hux say?”

“I can feel his disdain already,” he said, looping her arm through his. “Though this would be far from the worst thing a Handmaiden has been rumored to have done.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Do I even want to ask?”

He led her to the stairs, and they begrudgingly began their ascent back to the party.

“You do, but I wouldn’t want to answer in polite company.”

A warmth traveled between them in the Force as they returned to the ballroom, eyes scanning over the pair with some interest. Resuming her bored, superior expression, she realized she had left her gloves on the balcony and was now exposing her bare arms to the ballroom

 _Let them talk,_ she thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was nominated to be the graduation speaker for my university a few years ago and I basically pasted that here for the toast, replacing "this institution" with "the First Order."
> 
> Looking back, I see why they didn't pick my speech, especially that part when I talked about fully-operational Death Stars.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This behavior is unbecoming of the Supreme Leader."
> 
> "Behavior?" Rey’s clear voice chimed out in his head, playful and almost sultry. "Are you misbehaving, Ben?"

Though the number of couples dancing had dropped off significantly since the first dance, the number of people returning to the bar had increased, Rey noticed. This meant the chatter was rising above the “casual socializing” volume and into a more rowdy drone, broken occasionally by a boisterous outburst of laughter.

She felt a change in the Force surrounding Ben. Though he still walked with the commanding, beastly air of the Supreme Leader, he seemed considerably more sensitive to her. Even the more fretful passersby in the crowded ballroom seemed less afraid of him now, the terror replaced with nervous curiosity. Something about him had softened his armor, and Rey could tell she was not the only one to see it.

As they made their way back to the table, he could feel her questioning thoughts nudging gently against their bond, though she never thought them to him directly.

 _I’m finished for the night_ , he thought in response to her unspoken curiosity. _That toast was my only speech. I don’t feel the need to stoop any further to entertain self-aggrandizing sycophants._

 _But you did before?_ she replied, a little smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth. He pulled the chair out for her at the place setting labeled “Lady Viré Tasolis.”

_It’s an inherited skill. My mother has been doing it for decades._

She was tempted to argue with him, to defend General Organa, but then she realized that his ease in these situations was, in fact, probably gained from a careful study of the most gracious woman in the galaxy. She thought back to the memory he had showed her, of a young Ben, barely up to his mother’s collarbones, leading her in a waltz around the Solo family apartment. There was something sacred about that memory, she knew; it was light and unburdened in a way that few of the other Force sensations she received from him were.

She slipped out of her musings and back into focus. Several other guests floated by the table and tried to strike up conversation with the Supreme Leader, now seated stiffly beside her in an almost feral posture. He responded with disinterest, a distinct tonal shift from his interactions with the other guests earlier when he exuded an air of regal authority. She would give them a haughty, bored gaze, and occasionally flag down a serving droid for a drink.

Though he had put one glove back on, she noticed his uncovered hand, left free to caress her, had yet to leave her. It traveled from her own hand to her shoulders and back, where he began to drag his broad fingertips in lazy strokes.

A shiver ran down her spine as his fingers drifted absently over the soft skin at the small of her back, just above where her dress reasserted itself. His touch left trails of static electricity in its wake, a fact that he was more than a little aware of through the Force bond. He knew what he was doing, she realized with a flush. He was teasing her.  
  
Were the casual observer to look over to the couple, nothing would seem amiss. No one would notice the heat rising under the Supreme Leader's scowling helm as he drank in the feel of his companion's smooth skin beneath his rough fingertips. No one would know that the Lady Viré's own hand had travelled to her escort's leg under the table, her slim fingers drumming slowly against his knee.

She could feel a surge of delight roll off of him. He had never been touched so tenderly before, nor had the opportunity ever presented itself for him to touch a woman with such gentleness. His curiosity about her had started during their dance lesson when he first placed his hand on her lower back and discovered that her dress opened at the back to reveal a large plane of skin, smooth and unharmed by her years in the Jakku wastelands. When he put his hand on her back for their real dance, she had recoiled from his touch. Now, her familiarity with him was soothing. He had not known tenderness like this.

However, though he kept his gestures gentlemanly, he restrained a growing hunger. The hand on his knee was small, but controlling. _Mine,_ it declared. He liked that. Behind his mask, his eyes closed in bliss.

It might be a good thing no one could see his face, he thought to himself.

_This behavior is unbecoming of the Supreme Leader._

_Behavior?_ Rey’s clear voice chimed out in his head, playful and almost sultry. _Are you misbehaving, Ben?_

Her fingers squeezed around his leg as she gazed at him with dark hooded eyes. She shot him a wink and a smirk.

 _Well, I am not exactly behaving according to my position,_ he thought, a giddiness coloring his usually even tone _. I can't think of a recent leader of the galaxy to be so brazenly courting a former Handmaiden in mixed company, but there are some aspects of this role in which I get to set my own standards._

His finger moved in lazy circles along her spine. Their intimacy was both on display and yet covert, in the open yet hidden from plain sight. He enjoyed it. Perhaps that was his father's rakish nature in him. 

She chuckled softly, though his mention of courting sent her heart pounding recklessly in her chest.  
  
_No, you’re definitely right. You ought to be ashamed of yourself._ She tutted with mock disappointment as she suppressed a grin. _Such brazen disregard for decorum. What would the queen say? What would my mother say?_  
  
She sipped her glass of emerald bubbles as she flicked her gaze over the crowd, the formerly acidic taste having settled into a pleasant tang after the third glass. Perhaps the alcohol was assisting her boldness. She realized that, for once, she didn’t really care.  
  
Feeling dangerous, Rey scooted a bit closer to her companion. She leaned in to supposedly whisper some piece of important diplomatic information to the Supreme Leader, pressing her palm deeper into his flesh.

“Now everyone is going to wonder what I’m saying to you,” she whispered, feeling mischievous. Two could play at this game.

 _Oh, will they?_ He thought, bristling at the challenge. He shot out his gloved hand to her face, a sudden motion that was shocking in its gentleness. He cupped her cheek between the broad span between his thumb and forefinger, with the other fingers tracing down her pale neck. He slipped his uncovered hand lower on her hip, pulling her in close and bringing her eyes to meet his visor.

_Now they definitely will._

Rey’s heart stopped beating for a moment and she gasped at the sudden contact, arching into him unconsciously. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him, his own gaze burning into her behind the visor. His mind was erratic, a flurry of vague images and sensations rather than coherent thought. The brief glimpses she caught were enough to make her pulse restart with a vengeance.  
  
_Careful,_ she warned, although half-heartedly.

His heart was hammering against his chest. His ungloved hand seemed to tighten its grip on her side, fingers bunching in the fabric. He leaned in, his voice modulator the quietest boom he could manage.

“Or else what?”

She bit her lip, still staring him down as her hand inched a bit higher on his leg.  
  
“People will talk,” she whispered.

He swallowed a small gasp at her wandering hand.

 _They have been talking non-stop since you entered the room,_ he thought, letting her hear some of the Force murmurings that were passing through his mind at the moment: boring, idle gossip, certainly, but punctuated by curious murmurs that seemed to center on the two of them _. I think they now believe that I may actually be human under this mask._

He dropped his gloved hand, but let his uncovered hand wander up her side, one long finger slipping surreptitiously under the black silk border of her bodice to caress the naked curve of her waist.

_I might go on to regret that, but I certainly don't now._

She took a shuddering breath, realizing that she hadn’t in several minutes.  
  
_Well I am the only one in this room who can confirm what’s under that mask. Although,_ she practically purred, _perhaps later I should check to make sure you’re still human under there?_

Her tongue darted out briefly to wet her suddenly dry lips.

His eyes focused on her mouth, and he cursed his mask. He wished the room and everyone else in it would fall away, leaving them alone together.

He realized how alien these desires would have been before that strange day that Rey’s Force form had appeared to him on the Supremacy. When their hands met across the galaxy, her mind had melded with his, showing him light in the tempest of darkness that had been his only sense of self for many years. She had not been afraid, instead had come to him.

Now, in the light of her presence, his internal rage had calmed. His behavior was very unlike himself, he realized, but perhaps, he considered briefly, this was really him, underneath the Darkness that had been growing to consume him since infancy.

He didn't want to think about it now.

 _If there is anyone in the galaxy who I won't let forget about my humanity, it is you,_ he thought, even his mind’s voice growing huskier, more eager. _But I would enjoy a reminder._

His fingers idly traced patterns along her ribs. He was enchanted by the feel of her, and was taking pleasure in her hands growing bolder on him.

“All you have to do is ask,” she whispered hoarsely.

The hand on his leg inched slightly higher, resting on the hardened muscle of his thigh. Her other hand was terrorizing her skirt, fist clenching and unclenching as the heat rose in her body. She tried to bring her breathing back to a realistic rhythm, tried to calm the fires on her skin that had taken the shape of his fingerprints, but she was losing the battle.

As her hand rose, she could feel a fire burning in him, an unfamiliar sensation in the Force. She had felt the fiery rage in him many times; when she first slipped into his mind as he pried into hers on Starkiller base, it was just a part of him. The rage felt tempered, cooled when they first touched hands across the galaxy, but it heated to a murderous inferno when they were attacked by Snoke’s Praetorian guards.

But this was a different sort of heat, one she could feel radiating from his core. It resonated in hers.

His hand released her waist as he rose suddenly, and it came to rest on her arm.

 _I hope you know that don’t ask nicely_. His thoughts were tormented now, his wants battling to override his sense of duty, and even propriety.

He pulled back her chair and invited her to stand.

“My lady,” he said, his mechanical voice a bit choked as he offered her his arm. She could feel his gaze on her; it was feral and hungry.

She stood slowly, with near inhuman grace, and laid her hand delicately on his arm, her eyes never leaving his.

“My lord,” she murmured.

 _Of course,_ her mind whispered, tendrils of imagined sound caressing inside his skull.

_I know you can take whatever you want._

It was as if his breath had been squeezed out of him by the void of space, and he couldn’t vocalize a reply.

He found he didn’t have to.

“Supreme Leader?” a familiar voice piped up behind them. “Ah! My lady. I’m glad I found you.”

The couple turned, and found themselves staring down Shwa’rarth.

Ben, still reeling, could not even properly articulate his irritation. “What for?”

“I would not forgive myself if I did not seek out a dance with the Lady Viré,” he said, oblivious to the sudden ire he had won from the Supreme Leader.

He pivoted to Rey. “My lady, if you would be so kind?”

Rey's blood ran cold as the outside world pushed unceremoniously into their silent haven. Her eyes darted between the Nikto and Ben. His side of the bond howled, enraged at the interruption. She could feel his arm tense minutely under her fingers. She squeezed it reassuringly.  
  
In truth, the very idea of parting from her companion was enough to cause her near physical pain. The last thing she wanted was to dance with someone other than Ben. But she was not Rey now, and she cursed Lady Viré's imagined existence.

"I'm sure the Supreme Leader can spare me for one dance," she said, trying to alleviate the tension, though she was almost positive that Shwa’rarth was completely oblivious to it.

“Of course.” She could pick out the seething in the mask’s voice modulator, though Ben’s tone came out flat. “I will occupy myself in the meantime.”

The shadowy figure took off toward the balcony, a heated, angry Force signature trailing in his wake, while the Nikto gallantly took Rey’s arm and lead her to the dance floor.

“I hope you didn’t have anyone else filled in on your card for this dance,” Shwa’rarth said as an afterthought. “I couldn’t find you anywhere to request one.”

“You’ll have to forgive me. I received the card you loaned the Supreme Leader, but haven’t had an opportunity to use it.”

“Really?” Shwa’rarth said, guiding her into the throng of dancers as another waltz ended. She tried to relax, and not focus on the strangeness of her current partner, the challenge facing her as she tried to fake it through another dance despite having no formal training prior to this evening. The emerald drink was certainly helping with that.

“That is a shame. Other gentlemen were telling me that they had been looking for you, too,” Shwa’rarth said, bowing his invitation. “It might have come in handy.”

“Other gentlemen?” Rey curtsied, a much easier feat in her boots.

Shwa’rarth offered her his scaly hand. She took it, and his other settled on her left hip. She could feel the echo on her right side where Ben’s fingers were etching swirls on her just moments before.

“Oh yes,” he said. “The Soruta brothers were very interested in you.”

“Where they?” She tried to keep the revulsion from her voice. She hadn’t quite found the crowd around her very pleasurable, but those two were remarkable in their sliminess.

“Indeed,” Shwa’rarth said. “And I can’t be surprised. It is not every day we are graced with the presence of a jewel of Naboo.”

As the music began for the next number, Rey’s stupefied mind was suddenly forced into two places at once. She had to both continue her conversation with Shwa’rarth while tapping into the Force to remember how to dance.

She wasn’t sure how to manage, but she knew she had to figure out quickly.

 

Ben took a perverse sort of pleasure in walking through the more crowded areas of the ballroom. He liked the discomfort of the guests, not used to being interrupted by the presence of such a harrowing figure, and he relished the shock that followed him. He delighted in the terror in the Force that followed the bejeweled society parasites around him. He was desperate to feed off the emotions around him to try to soothe his anger at being interrupted.

He was ready to leave, and he wanted Rey to come with him.

He hadn’t known where he had planned to take her when they had risen from the table, and now he was desperately planning what to do if or when another chance appeared.

He opened the tall doors out onto the balcony. Perhaps he would take her back outside, maybe return to their spot below the stairs. He could feel the weight of his lightsaber on his hip, and he reminded himself that Rey would certain not appreciate it if he were to slaughter any witnesses to whatever activities may transpire between them. Maybe he would sneak her back to his room, spend a little more time talking together, and then…

His mind went to her hand on his thigh. When their minds had been connected as they fought the Praetorian guards on the Supremacy, she had used his thigh to brace herself when making an attack. In the heat of battle and his fear for her safety, he hadn’t been able to enjoy the intimate, trusting gesture.

Now, it felt as if her hand had been made of metal for the impression it had left on him.

He strode over to where he found her seething at him after their dance. One glove had dropped to the ground, the other was draped over the carved stone railing. He picked them both up in his uncovered hand.

Had she really forgiven him for the fight?

He wasn’t sure he deserved it. He was the antithesis of everything she believed in. _And yet_...

He placed his uncovered right hand on the bannister, letting the cool stone calm the heat radiating from his blood. He had felt her anticipation through the Force, twin to his own. Her skin was so soft, almost delicate. He had known she was beautiful from the moment he found her in the forest on Takodana, but tonight she was exquisite. It was more than the gown. It was more than the makeup the droid had applied to her. She was allowing herself to be something other than a scavenger or warrior for a change. She was coming into her own as a being of power, a goddess. And he was lucky to be in her presence to witness it.

A cooling sea breeze rolled over him. Beneath his sleeve, the black ribbon he had removed from Rey’s hair had come loose. He idly wrapped it again over his pale wrist, noting how his skin contrasted with the dark, delicate fabric. He certainly had caused some murmuring by returning to the ball with skin exposed.

_Is he a humanoid?_

_Am I seeing that right?_

_Ugh, he probably is deformed under that helmet._

_I don’t want to know what those hands have done._

_That poor girl._

When he had first seen the old holos of Darth Vader, he had no idea how this masked thing could be a man. As a child, he was frightened by the big eyes of his mask, his shiny black helmet, and his strange breathing apparatus. And yet, he was taught about the humanity of Vader that his uncle had fought so hard for. Before he had acknowledged the darkness that had grown to consume him, Darth Vader had symbolized power to him. He felt that power the first time he wore a long black cape, but didn’t feel the illusion was complete until he had his first mask. He smashed his last helmet after he killed his father, feeling shame at his failure in the forest on Starkiller. He knew what he looked like to the others, what sinister might the Supreme Leader presented.

Is that how Rey saw him?

He listened to the music quietly trickling out of the ballroom. Is that who he wanted to be?

He closed his eyes, and felt out in the Force for her. She was zooming across the dance floor with Shwa’rarth.

_Rey?_

_NOT NOW._

He felt her push against him in the Force, shutting him out. He felt a familiar worry for her twist in her gut, but he paced leisurely towards the ballroom. He knew it was nothing she couldn’t handle.

  
  
Rey wasn’t sure she could handle this. She desperately reached out in the Force to keep up with the complicated hand motions of the dance. The dancers around her all understood the dance, which made it easier for her to draw from the Force and follow along. However, keeping up with Shwa’rarth was another challenge entirely. He peppered her with questions, leading her to come up with creative excuses based on the limited backstory she was given.

“It’s so charming to have you in our company, Lady Viré,” he said cloyingly. “How did you and the Supreme Leader meet, after all?”

Rey lifted her skirt in one hand, using her breathlessness to disguise her deep concentration. She wasn’t sure if he had said anything to the Nikto previously, but she had to think of something vague enough that would convince him without urging him to pry further.

“Well, I was very familiar with the workings of the First Order, and we were put in contact through our shared circles…” She trailed off and she spun under his arm. Hopefully he didn’t notice.

“Shared circles? I didn’t think there was heavy support for the First Order on Naboo,” Shwa’rarth said.

 _Kriff._  
  
“Shows what I know,” he said, spinning her back around to face him. Rey wasn’t sure the crisis was entirely averted, but she relaxed a little. The next part of the dance was the standard pattern Ben had taught her for several beats. It was starting to become repetitive, and she was learning the different parts of the routine well enough that she could lessen her focus on the Force and worry more about the conversation at hand.  
  
“Whatever the case,” Shwa’rarth continued. “You two seem close. For a man so secretive, it is intriguing that you have such a connection to him.”

Rey tried not to let the panic show on her face.  
  
“A connection? What could you possibly mean?” Her attempt at sounding nonchalant was false, even to her ears. The pattern was changing again. She shifted her long skirts into her right hand.

“You cannot fool me, dear,” Shwa’rarth said, his tone mocking. “The Supreme Leader likely has little time for personal attachments, yet he can’t seem to keep his hands off of you. Surely there must be something there.”

Rey had had enough. She felt into the Force to try to get into his mind.

She felt Ben’s Force presence nudging at her thoughts. _Rey?_

 _NOT NOW,_ she broadcast back to him. Spinning under Shwa’rarth’s arm, she tried to babble out some coquettish denials as she picked up on her place in his mind. She could not bring herself to pry too deeply, but she couldn’t let this line of conversation continue. Ignoring the dance steps, she looked him deep in his eyes.

“You will cease this line of questioning about myself and the Supreme Leader.”Shwa’rarth looked at her blankly for a second, then spoke.

“I will cease this line of questioning about you and Supreme Leader,” he said. “I’m sorry to have made you uncomfortable, my lady.”

“And you will forget what affection you saw pass between us,” she added hastily.  
He repeated her command word for word, and she sighed, relieved. She was sure he might have been strong-willed enough to resist her manipulations once when he was younger, but in his advanced age, he wasn’t nearly as on guard as he perhaps should have been.

He changed the topic, no longer probing for gossip, but rather blissfully seeking idle small talk. He babbled about his lovely Kita’lis, the manor house, upcoming social events in Canto Bight, and after his parting  bow, expressed a sincere wish that Lady Viré would return for another visit soon.

She thanked him, offering the hollow promise that yes, she absolutely would plan on coming back, with or without the Supreme Leader, then made a dash off the dance floor. Unfortunately, she wasn’t fast enough.

“My Lady,” Aric Soruta said, intercepting her in front of the bar. “I have been looking for you all night.”

She felt the slick oil oozing off of his words. She remembered the grimy kiss he had planted on her hand early and suddenly felt very bare without her gloves.  
  
“Have you now?” She tried peering around him, looking for any sign of Ben’s black helm or flashes of subtle crimson, to no avail. She took a step to pass around him, but he seemed to cut her off with just a slight pivot and the shifting of his weight.

“Of course, you promised me a dance earlier, remember?” He plastered a smile on his face, a fake one that he probably saw a picture of once and thought was the proper expression for someone who wanted to look “charming.”

“Oh, right, that.” She drew herself to her full height and put on that haughty expression she had rehearsed through the night. “I am sorry, but I can’t dance this next song.” She knew she didn’t have the energy and focus to dance while crafting a charade again.

“Why not?” In the crushing crowd around the bar, it seemed like he was always one step ahead, able to cut her off as she looked for a gap in the crush of elegant bodies to get away. “Your dance card is empty, see?”

From out of his jacket pocket he produced the small datapad-like device that Rey had left on the table earlier. She hadn’t even noticed it was gone.

“The only dance you had scheduled was with Kylo Ren, and you did that already.” She felt his gaze on her. It made her feel like she had when she was young, first beginning scavenging, and Unkar Plutt would look at her, assessing her salvaged parts and debating if he wanted to torture her by devaluing her work or let her eat just enough to keep scraping up junk for him. His look felt predatory. “And that didn’t seem to end so well.”

She felt suddenly stricken. He had been watching them. What had he seen? Did she see them beneath the stairs on the balcony? What about them at the table? She masked the fear that threatened to creep into her voice with a deadly determination. “I apologize, but I must be returning to the Supreme Leader now.”

She tried to feel in the Force to determine if his mind would be malleable, but the crowd around her made it difficult to tell. She turned on her her heel and tried to step away from him, still boxed in by the crowd, but she felt his arm on her shoulder, right on the faint scar left by the Praetorian guards..  
  
“No you don’t,” he said, yanking her back. He pulled her close to his face. “I saw that creature put his hands all over you. If you’re going to put out for that monster, you can spare one dance with me.”  

That set her off. She felt the Force flowing through his greasy hand to his feet, and she could see his disgusting intentions for her. She seethed. Reaching into the Force, she felt for his ankles, and pulled them out from under him, sending him flat on his face.

She didn’t even look back to admire her handiwork and she pushed through the mass of bodies to get away. She could tell by the amusement rippling off the crowd that she had completed her task admirably.

She wanted to get out of there, as far away from that man as possible.

Skirting around the dance floor at the fastest clip she could manage, she tried to catch a sight of Ben, a surprisingly difficult feat, given the number of black suits in the crowd. She made it back to their table, but found no sign of him. She could see no signs that Aric had chosen to follow her, but she felt like it would be unwise to stay out in the open after the stunt she had pulled.

She felt for Ben in the Force, and discovered a slight disturbance coming from near the balcony. She rushed over, lifting her skirts to help her navigate around the labyrinth of tables and chairs.

She came upon a small cluster of people, and at the center of it, the Supreme Leader was lifting Dwane Soruta by an invisible chokehold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Star Wars Fun Fact! The Sea of Cantonica is the galaxy's artificial largest ocean, second only to the one created in Rey's drawers in this scene!
> 
>  
> 
> I feel like I need to write apology letters to J. J., Rian, and Daisy for that joke.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Gentlemen,” Rey said calmly, addressing the lesser life forms involved. “Is there a problem?”

Supreme Leader Kylo Ren noticed many of the other party guests would get out of the way for him when he walked towards the dance floor, and it filled him with a perverse sense of satisfaction. Looking out over the waltzing couples, he spotted Rey in the middle of the throng dancing with Shwa’rarth. If he hadn’t felt anxiety radiating off of her in the Force, he would have assumed she was familiar with the dance to the point of boredom. He had to suppress a smirk under his mask. He couldn’t help but be amazed by her.

As the song ended, Rey ducked away to the opposite corner of the dance floor near the bar. Ben strode towards her at a leisurely pace, weaving in and out of clusters of guests talking and the scattered table and chairs.

When he was close enough to see her through the crowd, Ben felt a tugging in the Force. She saw the man she had been talking to, the greasy-haired, younger Soruta brother, fall over suddenly. Others pivoted to look at him lying flat on his face, but no one saw Rey slip away. His interest piqued, Ben decided to follow the man.

As Aric Soruta rose from the floor and dusted himself off, he tried to hide his shame and rage. Others laughed jovially at his fall, assuming he had consumed one too many refreshments and was drunkenly making a fool of himself, as often happens at these high society functions. None had really taken note of his argument with Lady Viré, but that didn’t make him loathe her any less for her rejection.

Aric stalked over to his brother and his assembled group of cronies, while Ben lurked several feet away.

“You look rough. What happened to you?” Dwane asked.  
  
“That bitch...I don’t know what she did, but she pushed me over,” Aric spat. “She rejected me and then knocked me down.”

“That tiny thing? You sure she had the strength to put you over?” Dwane said with a laugh. Ben realized he fancied himself the smarter of the brothers, but even that was a stretch.

“I don’t know what she did, but she wanted to go crawling back to the Dark Lord or whatever,” Aric grumbled. “It’s disgusting. What does she want with that thing?”

Several of those standing with the brothers nodded or murmured their agreement.

Ben felt a small bud of anger rising within him, nothing beyond his control, but enough to propel him a couple of steps closer to the brothers.

“Look, I wouldn’t worry yourself too much,” Dwane said. “I know you had your heart set on making it with that girl tonight, but she’s probably nothing. Just another diseased little whore pulled out of a backworld cantina.”

Aric laughed. “Don’t be so crass, Dwane. She’s a _lady_ after all. You have to go to the ground levels of Coruscant or the brothels of Corellia to find one polished enough for this kind of affair.”

The group laughed. Ben felt the heat rising in his face. His hands clenched in fists at his sides, causing several empty glasses on a table nearby to shatter.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dwane apologized comically, putting his hands up. “How silly of me to forget. Of course, she’s not a backworld slut. Even those girls wouldn’t want to be seen with that metal-faced creep.”

Aric and his friends roared in laughter.

“Could you imagine how much they’d charge for him to put his pasty hands on them?” one of their male companions asked.

“She was just letting him paw at her!” Aric interjected. “I hope she at least set a good rate!”

“But really, we’re so lucky to be in the presence of Kylo Ren,” Dwane continued between laughs at his own joke. “I will have to ask him: Where in the galaxy _do_ you have to go to find a woman desperate enough to be the Supreme Leader’s whore?”

That was enough. Kylo Ren stormed forward, lifting Dwane up in the air by his neck. Heads turned to stare at him, and several guests emitted gasps.

“What was that you said?” Kylo asked, malice oozing from his voice modulator.

“Please,” Aric stammered, eyes wide with terror as he looked the Supreme Leader straight in the mask. “Please, we’re sorry. Just put my brother down.”

“I believe you had some words to say about my date,” Kylo said, the mechanical voice calm despite the rage coursing through him. “I would love to hear what you think of her. Two classy, upstanding, entrepreneurial gentlemen like you must have some wonderful character insights.”

Rey quietly approached the scene from behind her tall dark avenger, wincing slightly at the thorns bristling wildly through Ben’s side of the bond. He was moments away from turning the younger Soruta brother into an only child.

As much as she detested the two slimeballs, this was neither the time nor the place for an execution. She appeared silently from out of Kylo’s shadow, her face schooled into a look of cool disdain.

As she approached, she reached out to Ben through the Force, pouring as much calm and balance into the raging torrent of his mind that she could. Reassuring him that she was alright, she was here, she had his back, she was his.

“Gentlemen,” she said calmly, addressing the lesser life forms involved. “Is there a problem?”

“Ah, my lady,” Kylo said, turning to face her while keeping Dwane aloft in a light Force hold around his neck. “These gentlemen were just talking about you. Please,” he said, turning back to address the brothers, “Repeat for Lady Viré what you were saying about her. I’m sure it was lovely.”

“Please,” Aric begged, quieter this time as the crowd grew around them.

Ben felt Rey’s calming caress through the Force but sent her back the very recent memory of what he had overheard. Hearing it again caused his anger to flare up once more.

Rey’s face remained neutral despite her disgust at the loathsome words careening through her mind. Oddly enough, she found herself less preoccupied with their judgments of her than she was by their comments about Ben. She let that feeling loose through the bond, willing him to understand so that he would calm down.

In the meantime, however, this was one of those moments when being psychically connected to a Dark Side user was to her benefit. Siphoning some of his rage, she drew herself up to her fullest height, shoulders thrown back, chin tilted up at a haughty angle, her eyes blazing with barely concealed hatred.

“Oh, were you talking about me?” she purred, voice clear and cold as ice. “Please. Don’t stop on my account. I’d love to hear what you said.” The smile that she shot them was nothing short of sinister.

Kylo looked at her sneering down at them, her posture and expression nothing short of royal, and he felt a glow of pride. Her attempts at soothing him, her desire to protect him over her hatred at what they thought of her, only warmed him more.

He dropped Dwane abruptly, letting him fall to the ground in a crumpled heap.

“Go on,” Kylo said, striding over to stand next to Rey. “The lady will not be kept waiting any longer.”

Still clutching at his throat, Dwane lay prone on the floor, gasping for air, while his brother knelt beside him, looking up at Kylo in shock.  
  
“Please, Supreme Leader Ren, it was a mistake, a joke,” Aric said. “We didn’t mean any harm by it.”

Rey scoffed derisively as she watched the maggots wriggle.

“Of course you didn’t, Mr. Soruta. Calling a respectable woman a whore is the very height of hilarity after all.”

Then the wicked smile dropped, her face suddenly impassive, dark, and cold.

“So make. Me. Laugh,” she growled.

Both men’s already engorged eyes seemed to grow even larger as they realized that against all probability, she had managed to hear their conversation as well. Aric looked around, hoping to find their friends, but their posse of rats had scrambled at the first sign of danger. Dwane coughed a few times and managed to find his voice before his younger brother did.

Unfortunately, Dwane Soruta never had learned when it was best to say nothing at all.

“The joke…” he began, his voice weak. “The joke is that you would let that monster...put his hands on you.”

Rey’s mask of cold fury didn’t budge an inch. This kriff-for-brains little worm wasn’t even worth the energy it took to bat an eyelash. So she just watched the repulsive man, not blinking, not saying a word. Letting him dig his own grave.

The glassware on the tables surrounding them began to rattle, but Kylo said nothing.  
  
Dwane coughed a few more times before continuing, “We can’t seem to figure out why you would willingly go along with that...that thing. Is it– is it the power? Are you hungry for his title? His authority? His money?” Dwane laughed a few times, but they all turned into coughs.

Aric looked his brother in horror, but Dwane did not stop.

“It’s funny because he’s a nightmare, but you are beautiful, you’re in a room of beautiful, wealthy people. And you turn everyone else down for _him._ ”

He laughed as if expecting the room to join him. “No disrespect was meant to you at all, Lady.”

She let him laugh. Let him run his mouth straight into the ground. Let him see how far foolish little boys get when confronted with true power.

She finally moved, a sudden motion that made Dwane flinch impressively as she merely rolled her shoulders. She stared down at him coolly, this speck of mud sniveling at her hem.

“I am not laughing, Mr. Soruta,” she hissed, her voice low and dangerous. “I must not understand what part of this joke is supposed to be funny.”

She tilted her head up to look at Kylo beneath the piece of metal that stood between the ballroom and his fury.

“Did you find it funny, Supreme Leader?” she asked, her mind pressing gently on his, still trying to keep him from shattering every piece of glass in the room.

“I did, my Lady,” Kylo said, much to Rey’s surprise, though his voice modulator was masking some of the nuances of his tone. “It was quite funny to see men who had been groveling and brown-nosing in an attempt to court First Order business hours ago turn so quickly and so publicly once one found himself romantically frustrated.”

He stalked over to the brothers, his cape swaying behind him, the blood red lining a warning flag of danger.

“I found it hilarious that a man who has done nothing of value in his life would dare to condescend to me.”

Kylo stood over the two in a pose Rey had seen many times before: it was his fighting stance. She was afraid of what might happen if he were to reach for the lightsaber on his hip.

“It amused me greatly that this brainless heir to a slumlord would dein to think himself superior to anyone, when the most he can hope to achieve is to increase the profit he makes off those who live in squalor because of the wretched conditions he provides. If you, like your despicable father, are lucky, you will produce heirs to maintain this cycle of villainy, keeping the people of lower Coruscant impoverished in your quest for credits.”

Kylo put his tall black boot on Dwane’s back, pinning him to the floor, and leaned in close. Dwane let out a few pitiful coughs.

“A man who is nothing more than a fleck of dust in the vast galaxy believes he is superior to a woman he has barely met because she would have me in her company.”

He leaned closer. Dwane had finally learned his lesson and sputtered out something resembling an apology.

“I didn’t mean it.”

Kylo’s voice modulator produced a menacing whisper.

“You did. You meant to belittle my guest for her perceived slight against your family. If you’re lucky, this will be the worst injury to befall you tonight.”

For a moment, Rey heard the righteous fury of General Organa in his response. He knew the wretched things that the Soruta brothers did for their money, evil things, and he openly spoke against it. Perhaps he was the Supreme Leader that the galaxy needed. Perhaps she had been wrong to refuse his initial proposal. Perhaps they could rule it, with justice and strength. And balance.

As Rey retreated into the privacy of her thoughts, Lady Viré laughed, high and clear and scornful.

"You're right, Supreme Leader," she chuckled. "That is funny."

With a swish of her skirts, she turned her back on the Soruta brothers groveling on the floor.

"Shall we find something else to entertain ourselves with, my lord?" Her lip curled in a sneer as she shot a bored glance over her shoulder at the brothers. "Our present company has grown tiresome."

She reached a hand out to Kylo, pressing her small palm against his arm. The light that flowed through her touch was warm and soothing, a gentle pull back from the depths of his anger.

 _Ben,_ she whispered softly into his mind. _Come back to me._

She could feel the fiery hatred roll out of him under her touch, and he shuddered as his vengeful anger dissipated. He stepped back, removing his boot from Dwane’s back. She could feel his sorrowful, remorseful glare fix upon her from under his visor.

“I agree,” he said. His voice cracked slightly from the release of emotion, though Rey was likely the only one who could detect the slight shift.

“Where to, my lady?” Despite his slow, deliberate movements she could feel him trembling slightly.

His thought was so quiet, she might have imagined it.

 _I’m back._ As they walked on together, he seemed to release his anger through one final exhale that shook his whole body. _Thank you._

"Shall we dance?" she suggested airily, noting the murmuration of partygoers moving toward the dance floor.

 _What can I do?_ The concern was deeply evident in her question. Ben had come too close to losing control and she could sense the edge that his thoughts had taken on.

As they reached the perimeter of onlookers who had formed around the Soruta brothers, several guests were generous enough to part ways for the couple. A few more even had the decency to pretend like they hadn’t been gawking at the whole scene.  
  
_Nothing, please._ Ben’s thoughts sounded hollow. _You’ve done more than enough._

In the Force, weak glimpses of his past outbursts brushed into Rey’s mind. Slashed computer systems on various starships. The torture chamber he had kept her in smashed to shrapnel. A child’s bedroom, once belonging to a younger Ben Solo, filled with shredded scraps of bedding.

_You saved me from doing something I would never want you to see. I could have ruined this whole night, exposed our charade..._

His thoughts trailed off. He turned his mask to look at her.

_You have a great deal of power over me, you know that?_

She smiled softly, her eyes gentle. There were times when he was hidden behind chrome and durasteel, that she felt she could see his face as if the mask were nothing more than a piece of watery glass. She could see the old pain pulsing in his eyes, the anger darkening his brow, the anguish twisting his lips. Before, in that place of barely controlled rage, looking at him had been like staring into the Jakku sun as a sandstorm blotted it out; terrifying and powerful and breathtakingly beautiful. Even now, as he struggled to regain his sanity, weakened and shaking, he was still beautiful.

She let that feeling linger in her thoughts as her Force signature embraced his.

_I'm not here to overpower you, Ben. I'm here to be your balance if you'll let me._

He took her hand in both of his, leading her away from the large clusters of party guests.

From the moment his blade had severed Snoke’s body in half, he found that a constant whisper of darkness that had been winding itself through his mind day and night had been silenced. Snoke’s control over him had vanished, but the Darkness hadn’t gone away, as he feared it might. He was too far gone to the dark side's power to ever fully come back into the light, but if he had felt the light in flashes before while serving under Snoke, it was now becoming a steady beam, appearing to him more and more often despite his attempts to suppress it.

 _I don’t know if I can be balanced,_ he thought, with a small trace of melancholy. _I am too far in the Dark._

_You are not alone in this, Ben. I swear._

She looked down at their hands. His engulfed hers, one covered and one bare. His smooth palm against her own sent sparks racing through her fingers, the cool leather of the other hand contrasting against her knuckles. She brought them up between them, dipped her head quickly, and pressed a fleeting kiss to both, first the bare and then the gloved. Before the casual observer could realize what had truly happened, she let their clasped hands fall.

She felt a feeble, contented gust of the Force coil around her.

 _You can only save me so much,_ he thought, absentmindedly rubbing his bare thumb over her hands. _But I can’t keep you, Rey. This isn’t the life you want, and I can’t force you to choose it. Tonight, I will have you. We will have one more dance, I will summon Bazine, and let you go._

She felt his sigh shudder through both of them.

_You have your friends, your Resistance. Your freedom. I will not be what separates you from them._

Tears pricked angrily at her eyes. It took all of her strength to stop them from falling. Of course, she knew he was right. That didn’t mean that it didn’t break her heart all over again.

In all the heady whirl of the night, she had lost track of her reason for being here. Keep the Resistance going for as long as she could. Make them safe. Make it so that.. _.so that he couldn’t find her again._

With a steadying breath, she straightened her back and smiled sadly up at him. She could feel his anguish through the bond and it threatened to take her down with him. But she had to do her duty by the Resistance. And she had to do right by Ben.

 _One last dance, then,_ she murmured. _And then you’ll be free of me._

He raised his hand tentatively, a fearful boy hidden in the armor of a cruel tyrant, and brushed his hand against her face once more, trying to wipe away the invisible tears that threatened to fall down her cheeks. His touch was at once like a knife and a kiss.

 _You know I don’t want that._ His thoughts sounded to Rey like a plea. _But I know better than to demand from you what you could never give me. I tried it once before._

The memory of their parting on the Supremacy burned like a painful ember through their Force bond. Ben hadn’t even considered another parting when he had planned to bring Rey to him, but now the urgency of their separation was dawning on him. He wasn’t sure he could do it again. Seeing her turn her back on him had tortured him to his core. She had ignited a light in him from across the galaxy, one that he did not believe could burn again in her absence. But after he had endeavored to bring her to the ball, the hope of seeing her one final time had lit a spark that brought back that lightness, however briefly. Would just knowing that she hadn’t given up on him be enough?

No, he realized. He would return to the First Order, his mission of bringing peace and control to the galaxy, and she couldn’t be a part of that. She was the light of the Resistance. If he took her from them, they would be crushed, but she could not thrive with him in the halls of Star Destroyers or overseeing system-wide construction projects. She was no Phasma, no Hux.

Even if he dreamed of her every night, there was no place for her joy, her hope, her radiance in the First Order. He had chosen the First Order, the legacy of Vader over her, and at that moment, he believed, not for the first time, that he had chosen wrong.

She could feel herself slipping again, wishing that this night could go on forever. Wondering how terrible it would be if she never returned to the Resistance. Believing that Ben could love her in spite of all the darkness in his soul. Rey suddenly realized that she now understood a small portion of what he had to live with every day. She felt herself being torn apart from the inside out. The ache of her longing for him pulled one side and the commitment to the cause pulled the other. Give in to her desires, or be strong in the face of her convictions.

 "Will you not dance with me, then?" she queried breathlessly, desperate to escape from her own mind. She wanted to escape into the whirl of the dance, the swell of the music, the press of his arms around her.

The pain of the impending loss scalding like an iron between them, Ben offered her his arm one more time.  
  
“Are you rescinding the offer?” he asked in a morose boom. “I would not wish to deny us one final pleasure, my lady.”

"Certainly not, my lord," she said weakly. "In fact, it would be the...the highlight of my evening." Her accompanying smile was as dazzling as it was false.

She wound her hand around his arm, tucking it in the crook of his elbow; it felt like a perfect fit. Like she belonged in his arms.

"Lead on, Supreme Leader." For the benefit of the other guests, she tried to sound as cheerful as she could.

His legs felt heavy as he strode over to the dancefloor, Rey pressing herself so close to him. He could feel her exertion as she tried to play the role that would cover her sorrow.

 _Please don’t,_ his thoughts sounded pathetic again, but he couldn’t end things poorly. Not this time. _Please, don’t be Lady Viré. No more fake smiles. No more masks. I just need one last moment with Rey._

He stopped at the edge of the dancefloor as the last several bars of a waltz played.

“Please,” he whispered under the dying strains of the song. “I just need you.”

She winced, then nodded, not daring to speak. And Lady Viré was shed like a skin that Rey had been wearing. She could feel the Light pouring out of her, compensating for its time spent hiding within her disguise. Rey was the one who gazed up at him now, amber eyes shining with unshed tears and more love than she could contain.

 _I wish I could have you,_ she murmured, her thoughts and feelings spilling out from her in a wave of words. _No more masks, no more hiding, no more fighting. I wish you could hold my hand without worrying who sees. I wish we could dance every day. I wish you could take my hair down at night. I wish...I wish I could belong with you, Ben._ Her eyes were intense on his face. _I wish you could know how much I care for you._

Untangling his arms from hers, he removed his other glove and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

“I know,” he said, the voice modulator faltering as his voice hitched in his throat. “And if I have to spend the rest of my time as Supreme Leader building a galaxy where we can belong together, so be it.”

The dance partners bowed, then cleared away for the next dance.

_You are worth fighting for._

He picked up her bare hands with his and took several steps back onto the dancefloor, a playful, childish gesture she recognized from his memory of dancing with his mother. He dropped her hands and bowed deeply.

_And I will never stop fighting for you._

She curtsied perfectly, her smile genuine and fierce and hers this time.

_Nor I for you, Ben Solo. And I'll be damned if I'll let you go the next time._

Behind his mask, she could feel him beaming. He offered his left hand to her, and slid his right hand on her lower back, pulling her in tighter than was perhaps proper in an attempt to never let her go.

_I wouldn’t have you any other way._

Her right hand found his shoulder as she squeezed the hand holding hers. She could feel his heart beating where he had pressed her into his chest. His hand on her bare back held her firmly, branding her with his heat.

 _I wish you could always hold me this close, beloved,_ she whispered, the endearment rolling too easily out of her thoughts. She blushed at the word but didn't try to correct herself.

If this was the last time they could be together, he would part from her knowing how she felt.

The two quickly fell into the routine dance steps comfortably, their bodies synchronizing without conscious thought. Though Ben realized through the Force that there were hand gestures he was missing from this particular dance, he knew neither he nor Rey shared the least bit of concern for the appropriate conduct. He wished he could pry off his helmet, to see her eyes unfiltered again, to gently cradle her face and brush his lips against hers, letting his touch tell her what words couldn’t.

He sent her these images through the Force, curling and uncurling his hands against her back, letting the pleasurable electricity course through both of them. _Beloved..._

Rey's eyes closed in bliss, reeling into the next spin. Her hand on his shoulder slid up to his neck, curling around the back, seeking out the skin of her own to touch. She found a break between his collar and the back of his helmet and laid her fingers there, feeling the pulse racing beneath the smooth alabaster.

 _Perhaps Bazine will take a while to make planetfall..._ she sighed.

Ben felt her fingers graze what felt like a hidden part of him, and he felt static coursing through his body, down to the tips of his fingers and his toes, which curled in surprise in his boots. He had longed to be touched for so long that even the most chaste caress felt sacred to him.

He wished he could be more exposed to her, let her see him as he was one more time.

 _I do have to get you back._ His thoughts were resolved. _But I can allow you to set your own timetable._

She grinned then, a smile just shy of wicked.

 _Don't tempt me, Ben,_  she purred, running her thumbnail delicately against his jugular. Her thoughts turned into what was next step after that brush of their lips that he had imagined. She shivered at the thought of that gentle caress turning into a hungry press.

He felt her hunger shooting through him as the music picked up, and his legs again felt light. He lifted her up with the tempo of the music, then set her down, drawing her closer to him again.

 _Or else what?_ he thought, teasing her with a gentle caress down her spine. Though he had tried to conceal it for years, he was every bit a Solo.

Her blood sang when he lifted her up, his hands spanning her waist with ease. She pressed impossibly closer, trying to soak up every last inch of him. Her fingers returned to their place on his neck, the ends of his dark hair brushing faintly against her knuckles.

 _Or else my timetable may not adhere to Galactic Standard Time,_ she teased.

She felt a thrum of delight flow from him, and what could have been a sigh of pleasure from her touch.

But just as he had melted into her touch, he tensed up again under her fingertips. She felt a sudden surge of dread.

She came alert at once, immediately on guard.

_What is it?_

He stopped dancing, and held her still, no longer tender, but frantic.

“We have to move,” he said, voice raised above the music, just as blaster fire erupted in the ballroom. The cultivated calm Rey had worked so hard to build in Ben shattered. She felt his emotions in the Force turn from a contented swell of pleasure and joy into fear, confusion, and rage, and his lightsaber was in his hand before he had even completely let go of her.

“Run,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this before "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" trailer came out, but now you have some visuals for the dancing until I develop the skills necessary to illustrate my own stories, which will likely happen in 3-10 years. Get hype.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Don’t apologize,” Kylo said, storming off into the fray. “Just destroy them.”

“Like hell I'm running!” Rey shouted as blaster fire continued to ring out around them. “I'm not going anywhere without you.”

The screaming and panic coming from the fleeing guests rattled in Rey’s head to the point that she was unable to see straight, much less think clearly. Thankfully, Ben’s ability to control the Force in chaotic situations was far superiors to hers, and his hand on her arm helped her focus. This kind of mayhem was second-nature to him.

“Fine, but we have to get out of here,” he protested, dragging her out of the center of the dance floor and towards the back wall, where they could take cover under the overhanging orchestra loft and a canopy of the decorative banners that were scattered around the dance floor.

With their backs against the wall, they could see the havoc unfolding before them. Many guests were pushing and shoving to get through the balcony doors, but unfortunate latecomers were getting plowed down as blaster bolts rained down from above. Though a few in the crowd had opted for the large access doors at the corners of the room, Rey could hear blasters erupting from the sides.

“We're going to be surrounded in a minute,” she said. “We have to carve out a path for escape.”

“We? You don't have a weapon,” Ben said.

“And whose fault is that?” Rey snapped.

Ben chose to ignore that.

“I know you can hold your own, but not unarmed,” he said.

With his lightsaber cracking angrily in his hand, he too had been trying to feel through the Force to understand what they were facing. It was a coordinated attack by a band of hostile fighters, but he couldn't understand what they wanted.

“Well, then get me something to fight with,” she said, her mind finally beginning to center despite the sound of screams and the sensations of death crowding around them.

Knowing a blaster was out of the question until he could visually identify one of the attackers, Ben looked around for anything she could use in her defense.

“Hold this,” he said, directing her to grab on to one of the nearby poles that held up a hanging banner. She held onto the slender metal as he kicked the base over, and with two quick slashes of his saber created a long hollow staff for her. It lacked the grip and heft of the staff she had made on Jakku, but she liked the feel of the improvised weapon in her hand; at this point, any weapon in her hand felt good.

He placed his bare hand on her arm and sent her a quick sensation, a memory, a lesson: how to block blaster bolts in the Force.

 _You have to think faster than the trigger can fire off,_ he thought, repeating a mantra she was almost sure he had learned from his uncle. She nodded in understanding.

“I’ll block them from the side entrance,” she said. “I can hold them off if you take the ones upstairs.”

“My pleasure,” he growled, the rush of the battle around them filling him with unbridled energy, the same she had felt in Snoke’s chamber on the Supremacy. It was primal, a base instinct. She had seen him at his worst time and again, screaming and angry and destructive, but she was beginning to learn to read his moods; he was slipping back from earnest, gentle Ben Solo to the crazed Kylo Ren, full of bloodlust and malice aimed squarely at his attackers. At this moment, she could not brings herself to hate this side of him; she needed him too much.

Rey knew him perhaps deeper than anyone else and had experienced the light and warmth in him, but she could not deny that Kylo Ren was a honed blade, and with his wild, jagged lightsaber crackling, she feared for those who crossed his path.

“Oh, and I’m sorry about this,” she said.

Before he could ask her what for, he heard a ripping sound, and watched as she tore into the billowy gray fabric from the hem to just below her knees. She yanked several layers of it away from her legs and discarded the irregular scraps that had once been a full skirt, giving her dress a bizarre, asymmetrical slit that exposed her rough brown boots.

“Don’t apologize,” Kylo said, storming off into the fray. “Just destroy them.”

If he had any thoughts that crossed his mind about where else he wanted to rip her dress, he was able to smother them. He was lost in his battle rage, his desperation to halt the blaster fire that still rained down from above, and his fear for Rey’s safety.

He lingered in the shadowy edges of the ballroom under the overhanging platform near the staircase. Having slaughtered those who had been standing on or near the stairs at the time of the attack, most of the assailants were now content to just pick off victims as they pleased from their raised vantage point, while another group lingered on the dancefloor.

Though some of the guests had already made it to the balcony, those who had seen the massacre of those foolish enough to crowd around the door darted across the room in a mindless panic. The guests who had desperately fled for the service door near the bar formed a grim pile of bodies near the base of the stairs.

Behind his mask, he unleashed a feral grin towards the fray.

 _This might actually be fun_ , he thought, relieving the crick in his neck with a sharp turn of his head and a loud snap.

Lashing out his lightsaber a lazy flick of his wrist, Kylo Ren stalked out onto the dance floor, feeling the blaster bolts in the Force before they were fired. He held up his hand, sending them back in the direction of the shooters, hitting a few and causing the rest to scatter.

It was a deadlier waltz than the one he had danced with Rey; urged on by his rage and hatred at the attackers, he cut through the insurgents on the steps with a few graceful strokes of his angry red blade. The cuts that severed muscle and bone were just part of the dance; the screams were a symphony of violence. The Force was the rhythm that guided his steps, and he felt the life leaving his victims, their bodies covering the white marble of the dance floor with such ease.

Though Kylo noted several brave fools darting towards him to continue the attack, he knew it was barely worth the effort to eliminate them; they were practically throwing themselves at his blade. He stormed up the staircase to meet them on the landing, and with a few quick slashes, severed their arms from their bodies before pulling them in close to him to deliver killing stabs. Their fear, their anguish, screamed to him through the Force before it was silenced forever.

He was able to briefly glance at the bodies before blaster fire started to rain on him again. The two attackers in front of him were not wearing any particular kind of uniform, but street clothes in varying degrees of cleanliness. Perhaps, he considered, they were some sort of covert Resistance force that had been blending in around Canto Bight for hours before the attack.

But the simpler answer seemed more likely: this was not a Resistance attack.

That did not, however, mean he was going to be any more inclined to show mercy to those who had threatened his and Rey’s lives.

Feeling for the trajectory of each bolt in the Force, he sent each one flying back at its shooter, watching them jump and duck out of the way at their own wayward blasts. There were maybe thirty or so left. He deflected several more bolts with the Force, hearing screams as several hit their intended targets, before deciding his lightsaber would allow him more precision in eliminating the crowd of attackers.  

This _was_ going to be fun.

 

The smell of death was not something Rey was unaccustomed to, but the burned flesh of the felled guests was causing the little food she had consumed to threaten to escape from her stomach. Following Kylo’s lead and keeping to the edges of the room, she sprinted forward, one hand firmly grasping her new staff, the other pulling her tattered skirt out of her way. She glimpsed the blank faces of the murdered guests, remembering how she had seen them looking at her with such curiosity just hours earlier, though she tried not to look too closely, lest it break her focus.

She thought she glimpsed Aric Soruta’s greasy blonde hair peeking out from under a tablecloth, or Shwa’rarth’s formal white suit jacket slumped over the buffet. She felt guilt sink into her stomach like lead. She did not like these people nor did she agree with their lifestyle. She perhaps had enjoyed the dancing and wearing a fine gown and looking like a goddess in the eyes of Ben Solo, but she would have hated to have been under such intense scrutiny all the time. These people had been bitter, vicious, vindictive to a woman they barely knew, and yet...and yet none of them deserved this end, she thought.

Rey hadn’t been able to stop the attackers, to save them as a true Jedi would have. She briefly thought to blame Ben for this, for leaving her unarmed and defenseless in the face of such horrible carnage, but she knew even he couldn’t have predicted this, let alone prevent it. He was strong in the Force, true, and deadly with a lightsaber, but on his own, he couldn’t have stopped the surprise attack that had already claimed so many lives. She would have only been able to help so much had she been armed sooner.

Shaking off her guilt, she reached into the Force to feel the attacks still raining down in the ballroom. She managed to duck every bolt that fell around her. She didn’t have much time for regret if she was going to prevent more carnage from the side entrance.

She was able to squeeze into a small nook in the wall next to the doorway of the side entrance. She could tell Kylo had reached his desired destination, because the blaster fire seemed to no longer fly so randomly overhead, and instead seemed to focus on a target in the center of the large ballroom. In the Force, she could sense a few bodies hurrying down the hallway, one in the lead acting as a lookout, and three others bringing up the rear. They were all armed to the teeth.

She knew she only had one chance at this, but she had performed similar maneuvers a number of times in the shells of various felled starships in Jakku’s wastelands. When she spied other scavengers trying to make a move into her territory, she would wait and ambush them, sending them running off into the desert with their tails between their legs. In this instance, she realized that her usual move — swinging for where she guessed the trespasser’s head would be — wouldn’t protect her from the blasters of the three stragglers.

With her awareness of the Force, however, she had a more acute sense of when the attackers were coming and could change her tactics. She was able to react in a split second after seeing the first pair of boots pass through the doorway, and sweep her makeshift staff under the feet of her would-be attacker, tripping him and sending him sprawling at her feet. As he lay splayed on the floor, she rammed her staff against his head, then quickly stooped to pick up his blaster. Just as the three followers ran through the door, she was crouched and in position to fire off three quick shots, killing them. Her stomach lurched in guilt as she gazed at the corpses she had created, but it was quickly assuaged when she realized that she wouldn’t have been left alive if those three had been able to see her. And she still wasn’t even close to safety yet.

She paused to examine the blaster in her hand. It was nearly new, easy to use, and she noticed that it was better than some of the ones she’d seen the Resistance arming foot soldiers with. She had a sneaking suspicion this wasn’t any ordinary band of rebels, but before she could consider this, she had to prevent any more of them from getting in and hurting anyone else.

Stepping over the bodies, she prepared to pull the door shut and wedge her staff between the door handles to lock it, preventing any further attacks from this entrance. However, as she stepped in the doorway, she noticed a familiar figure walking towards her.

“Kita’lis! Please!” Rey shouted, imploring for her new friend’s safety. “You have to get out of here! It's not safe!”

“Why ever would I be unsafe in my own home?” Kita'lis asked, approaching Rey slowly. Something about the sweetness of her tone, the innocence of her question, made Rey feel suddenly ill.

“Hello, Lady Viré of Naboo." Kita'lis looked her up and down pointedly and continued. "I don't know who you really are, but I will respect that this is who you are pretending to be tonight.”

Rey was too stunned to even manage a protest, but Kita'lis went ahead, unbothered by her conversation companion's state of shock.

“I don't know too much about the Naboo Handmaidens, but I do know that few came from nobility, and even fewer were granted titles following their terms of service, but I thought it impolite to pry.” She approached Rey slowly, her gait slow and regal despite the commotion around her. Rey had to fight her reflex to step back.

“These trifling details get overlooked all the time,” Kita'lis said, her eyes never breaking from Rey. “After all, you're not the only date who was here under false pretenses. Hell, I was in your position last year. I was being touted as some spice trader’s daughter when Shwa’rarth bought me.”

Her words curled like ice under Rey’s skin.

“I assumed you were like me, brought here by that...that creature. The Supreme Leader, he calls himself.” Kita'lis snorted. “Leader of nothing and no one. I saw that look of terror, of disgust on your face, and I thought that beast had picked you out to be his plaything tonight. I felt pity for you. I wanted you to know you weren't alone, you didn't have to be afraid. If he laid a finger on you, I would have hidden you away, helped you escape. I even thought about opening up to you, warning you about all this…”

She gestured to the ballroom behind Rey.

“Until I saw him defending you against those repulsive men,” she took her eyes away from Rey just to shake her head sadly. “He wasn't just talking about his prize. No, he wouldn’t have lifted a bloody finger to protect your honor in that case. He was defending you like he...well.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “I thought you were the perfect recruit for our little rebellion here tonight, but you surprised me.”

Rey’s throat had grown dry, but she found her words, raspy as they sounded.

“You...you coordinated this?”

Kita'lis didn't even need to respond; the pieces fell together for Rey. The insurgents hadn't broken into the house; Kita'lis had let them in. That’s why the First Order Stormtroopers hadn’t come to the defense of their leader. And no wonder the attackers carried the latest model weapons; Kita had funded them.

This was her revenge, revenge for her own enslavement against those who had oppressed her. She no doubt hated the First Order, too, but the murder of their leader was a bonus, a tool to rally her troops to attack, rather than her primary intent.

“You know,” Kita'lis said, assuming a more casual posture now. “I was really surprised to find out that _thing_ has human paws after all. And you didn't even seem to mind him touching you; you even enjoyed it. You aren't like him, though, are you?” Her eyes met Rey’s with unbounded curiosity. “His cause is not really yours, is it?”

Rey felt once more like Kita'lis was pulling her in, enticing her to reveal her true self, but a sudden snap of tension in the Force coming from the balcony called her back into focus.

She felt the weight of the blaster in her right hand and glanced down at it briefly.

“You won't do it,” Kita'lis purred confidently. “I'm right, even if you don't want me to be. You don't belong to this world. His world. They aren't for you. And you wouldn't want them, anyway.”

Kita'lis was right. Rey wouldn't kill her. But despite how wretched many of Shwa'rarth's guests were tonight, she wasn't going to let this mass slaughter continue.

Acting with little thought or hesitation, Rey raised her staff with her other hand and brought it down in an unforgiving arc, hitting Kita'lis at the base of her neck. She crumpled like a rag doll in the doorway. Rey shoved her body aside before shutting the doors and bracing them with the staff, locking the unconscious Nikto in the hallway.

She rushed over to the large windows in time to see more flashes of light and hear the frightened screams erupt once more as the second wave of attackers emerged from the surrounding landscape and began an assault through the gardens.

 _Kriff._ Rey knew she couldn’t hold them off alone, much less protect the other guests. She needed Kylo’s help. She wasn’t sure if he was finished with the group on the stairs, but she didn’t have much more time to wonder; the wave of screams from outside became deafening as the next barrage of blaster fire erupted, gunning down those still on the balcony like they were practice targets. She turned away, but not in enough time; the tall window in front of her was only able to absorb a few stray bolts before it shattered. And though she ducked and covered her head with her arms, she was sprayed in stray glass shards.

She didn’t scream, for fear of calling attention to herself from the attackers, but she knew she gave off a pulse of fear in Kylo’s direction. When the tinkling sounds of the falling glass settled, however, she heard a loud, electronic scream pierce the ballroom quickly before it was abruptly cut off.

Her heart froze, and she felt a bolt of anguish in the Force. Ben was in trouble.

Carefully pulling as much of the glass off of her as possible with the Force, she ran toward the source of the scream.

 

Though they had greatly outnumbered him, Kylo Ren had dispatched the bulk of the soldiers on the stairs handily. It was a routine he had perfected in his years as Snoke’s chief attack dog: alternating between deflecting bolts to thin the herd and dealing killing blows to scatter his attackers, leaving them to be stalked and hunted individually. Though only a few remained to fight him, he could hear several lingering in the foyer calling for backup. He felt a sharp twinge in the Force, a burst of sudden fear, more acute than before; there was an attack coming from the balcony, where the majority of the survivors had evacuated. He saw that Rey had discovered it the same time he did. There was no more time for him to fool around with these insignificant ants; these guests weren’t worth risking his and Rey’s safety. He had to get to her if they were going to make their escape, and time was running out.

Suddenly, he felt the assailants on the balcony open fire, and there was a wave of anguish in the Force billowing from the balcony. He heard a loud shattering as the blaster bolts pierced the window, and he felt Rey’s terror ring out to him. He had to get to her. In a burst of rage, he stabbed his closest attacker, throwing the body at another assailant, and turned to face another cluster of insurgents behind him.

With his concern for Rey at the front of his mind, he hadn’t felt the warning in the Force. One attacker shot a small pistol at him, and when he pivoted to block the bolt, he found his visor suddenly blacked out. The breathing filter on his mask became acrid, and as he breathed in he felt a sharp burning in his throat.

One of the attackers had thrown acid on his face.

He roared in anger, then shot out a wave of rage in the Force, throwing his attackers backward before they could fire their blasters at him. A few even flew over the banister, and he could hear their screams before they landed with a sickening thud on the blood-stained marble below.

He thought he heard Rey scream his name.

With his free hand, he clawed at the release on his helmet and yanked it off, careful not to touch the acid with his bare hands. His face exposed, he panted deeply, desperate for fresh air. He had been so afraid earlier to be seen talking to Rey without his mask, lest he destroy the illusion they worked so hard to cultivate; now, in the face of actual peril, that fear seemed silly. Looking around at his attackers, he felt like a caged animal suddenly freed. He was exposed, certainly, but also no longer felt any need for restraint.

The rest of the group that had attacked him was just struggling to their feet when he strode over to them. Kylo delivered a series of quick, merciless blows that made many scream out in pain; he sought to dismember them before killing them as payback for what they intended to do to him. A few of them had containers strapped to their bodies; had he not killed them quickly, another might have gotten to throw more acid on his now exposed face. He slashed without skill, without thought; he wanted to damage them. A few that had flown up the stairs tried to run away, but before their hands could find purchase on their blasters, he threw his lightsaber at them. The Force carried his blade in a jagged arc, fueled by his rage. It sliced through one but missed the others who raced up the stairs.

When he summoned his saber back to his hand to kill the remaining insurgents, he found them thrown back by blaster fire. Rey bounded up the stairs to the landing a moment later, holding one of the insurgents’ blasters.

"Rey," he said, breathless. The thick cloud of panic and rage that seemed to hover around him lightened at her presence. Her worry for him, her brightness, seemed to dissipate his dark aura.

“Ben!” she gasped, worry obvious in her voice. Her eyes darted all over him, taking in every scorch mark, every tear, searching for damage. “Kriffing hells, what hap—“

She stopped as her hurried gaze finally slowed enough to take in his bare face. Her free hand seemed to float upwards of its own accord before she stopped it, letting it curl into a fist at her side, the moment passed.

"Acid," Kylo said flatly, gesturing to his corroded helmet on the ground as an explanation. He deactivated his lightsaber and hooked it to his belt.

“You know, I had hoped to spend some time at the ball with you without the helmet, but I hadn’t imagined it would be like this,” he said.

He felt her mind reaching out to him, trying to assess his mental state. She was careful, trying to soothe him, waiting for Kylo Ren to recede and Ben Solo to emerge once more.

"I'm alright," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. He grabbed her free hand in his. "But we have to go."

Though she could hear the blaster bolts and screams emitting from the balcony again threatening to destroy her focus, she remembered another entrance, one that she had not seen in use at all during the firefight.

“This way,” she said, rushing down the stairs, dragging Ben along with her. He seemed confused, waiting for a more concrete answer, but his trust in her overwhelmed his curiosity.

She shifted her grip on his hand, squeezing tightly as she pulled him toward an opening in the wall. “Through here,” she tossed back to him. She had to tear her eyes from his face, intense and calculating.

"Where does this go?" he asked, crouching to fit in the narrow passage. He mentally scanned the darkened hall ahead. He couldn't feel anything in the Force, though he had no doubt that this corridor would have been strategically useless for carrying out an attack, given the limited space.

Rey smirked unseen. "Anywhere but here," she said. "A protocol droid brought me my boots through here, so it must lead to a staff exit or something like that."

She hazarded a glance over her shoulder at him, her smile practically radiant enough to light the dim tunnel.

 "It's good to see you, Ben," she murmured, her emotion genuine.  
  
When she turned back to lead the way, she couldn't see the slight smile tugging at the corner of Ben's mouth.

"Yeah, it's good to see you too," he said, his voice soft.

Since she had arrived on the stairs to assist him, his mind had been playing the words she had said to him earlier over and over: _Come back to me_. He let the rage and passion of the battle drift away, but kept feeling in the Force behind them for any sort of attack. Rey had been swift and clever in leading them here; the attackers weren't even aware of this entrance.

They rounded a cramped corner to find themselves in a larger room: the server droid charging bay. Many seemed to be exhibiting what translated in sentient beings as "fear"; many had their self-preservation programming tripped, and were huddled in corners, still unsure whether or not the danger had passed.  
  
Rey's eyes scanned the huddled droids before finding a familiar faceplate.

"W4!" she said, indicating her borrowed attendant droid. "We need to find a way out of here, can you show us the way?  
  
"Oh, hello, my lady!" the droid said, its mechanical voice full of digitized fright. "I am so glad to see you are safe! Your dress did not appear to survive as unharmed as you did. That is a shame. You looked so beautiful. Are they gone?" W4 scanned Rey and then seemed to start at the weapon in her hand. "Oh my! Where did you get that?"  
  
Rey exchanged a glance with Ben.

"Yes, they're gone," she said firmly. "W4, I need you to help us find a way out of the house. Can you do that?"

The droid seemed hesitant but quickly relented.

"I would not want you putting yourself in unsafe conditions, my lady, but if you are able to defend yourself, I would not feel so bad," it said, resolutely.

"I can take you to the service door. Some of those nasty men entered from the foyer, and the rest came in from the landing pad. I think you would be safest this way."

The droid wheeled past its cohorts, some of the serving droids still nervously clutching trays; they looked up as the group passed. Though many eyes had stared at the pair over the course of the evening, the droids seemed to be scanning them with what could best be described as hope.

Not many guests had survived, then, Rey realized.

W4 guided them through another passage, this one brighter and larger, though with a noticeable odor.

"Pardon the mess," W4 said brightly. "This is the waste disposal dock. We do not usually have guests in this way."

It led them to a metal door and depressed a button.

“I am so sorry about what happened. I assure you that Mistress Kita’lis’s next gala will be much safer,” W4 said earnestly.

The Force was unable to allow her to read what passed for the droid's "mind," but Rey realized that W4 likely had no idea what Kita’lis’s true intentions for the evening had been. Given that W4 had spent hours leading up to the gala assisting a guest, it was likely that it was a spare attendant droid that only interacted with Kita’lis on the rare occasions that her primary attendant was unfit for duty. She was surprised to find herself pitying the poor machine.

“If you send for your things, I am sure we can deliver them to you after we are able to clean up a little,” W4 said.

Ben thanked the droid gruffly, and he and Rey headed out.

As the door began to slide shut, a flash of light appeared over their heads, followed by a loud whirring.

"Oh, thank goodness, the police!" W4 exclaimed. “I wonder what took them so long.”

As W4 promised, the door opened to a small ramp tucked away on the side of the house. It widened into a small paved road that snaked down the hill. From this view, the bright lights below seemed to be the only thing disturbing the tranquility of the city’s caldera, but every few seconds, a few more blaster shots rang out from the house behind them. They just ran faster, hand in hand through the stone speeder paths that wove and dipped around the decadent mansions overlooking Canto Bight City. They did not stop until they reached the edge of the city, as the houses became smaller and closer together, and a well-lit street of clustered buildings lay just beyond.

Rey looked up at Ben with wild eyes, the city lights glowing golden off her flushed cheeks. Her hair was a disaster, ash and blood streaked her skin, her gown was in tatters. She looked nothing like the lady she had started the evening playing.

"I hate to cut our evening short on such a sour note, my lord, but perhaps you should call Bazine down for a rescue?" she pressed, breathless. "For both of us."

"And here I thought you didn't want to leave me after our last dance," he said, his tone betraying more hurt than the intended amusement. "Before she can get you, we have to get you to a landing pad, one that's safe."

Rey squeezed his hand again, insistent.

"No. No, you're coming with me," she said, trying to put as much force behind her words as she could. Her eyes were pleading with him, begging him to listen.

"Please, Ben."

He wanted to protest. He wanted to let her know that he could easily call up another First Order ship to get him from anywhere in this city. But he looked at her, and his resolve melted. He couldn’t deny her wish, much as he wanted to.

“Let’s just get away from here,” he said. “Even if those rebels don’t follow us, the last thing we need is the police asking us questions.”  
  
He tugged her hand, sensing she wasn’t going to be pleased with his response. He tried again.  
  
“We’ll see where the night takes us.”

She exhaled quietly and nodded sadly. "Let's go."

He paused, sensing her distress, and turned to her, dropping her hand.

“Rey, would you want…” he trailed off, searching for the words, but realizing what she was asking. “You wouldn’t want to come with me. With the First Order.” It wasn’t a question, but he knew she would never accept the alternative he could propose.

She held his gaze and poured everything she had into the bond.

She wanted more than anything to go with him. She never wanted to be apart from him again. Her heart was screaming its acceptance of his proposal.

But she also let him feel the guilt of abandoning her friends, the people who had opened their arms to her when she was a stranger. The anguish of that betrayal. The fear and disgust toward the First Order and its cruelty. The angry, shadowy wraith wearing her beloved’s face but squashing the soul within it. She couldn’t bring herself to stand by and watch Ben Solo die every day under the boot of Kylo Ren.

“You know what I want, Ben,” she said softly.

She could feel instantly a wave of negative emotions flowing off of him: anger, frustration, but also despair, fear, and longing.

He stepped in closer, and brought his arms around her, holding her tightly against his chest. Neither breathed for a moment before he pressed a kiss against her forehead. Through it, he poured a flash of images, his visions of the future after tonight: escaping with Rey off Cantonica, their joy at being together quickly turning to anguish and terror; Supreme Leader Kylo Ren being held as a prisoner by the Resistance, awaiting a tribunal to decide his fate; his mother, delivering the Resistance’s death sentence; Ben Solo crying out for Rey with his last breaths, his throat raw from screaming for her, knowing that the First Order wouldn’t die with him, but that Rey would suffer the most from his loss…

He pulled away from her. In the glow of the electric street lights, tears shone in streaky lines down his cheeks.

“Tonight, I belong to you, and you alone,” he repeated hoarsely.  
  
As the visions dissolved and reality swam back together in the shape of his face, Rey noticed her own cheeks were wet with silent tears. Her skin burned where his lips had touched her. How could she part with him, knowing how he felt?

In a rush of movement, she threw her blaster aside and flew into his arms, burying her face in the junction between his neck and his shoulder. Her arms came up tight around his neck, one hand clutching at the hair on the back of his neck, and she cried. Great heaving sobs at the cruelty of it all. He was stunned for a second, not used to being in a position to provide comfort, and not certain when he had last been given it. He ran his hand through her hair and began to rock her gently.

"Why?" she choked out. "Why couldn't we have been anyone else in the galaxy? Why would the Force bring us together only for us to be kept apart?"

If he could have laughed at that moment, he would have chuckled at the notion of them being anyone else; they had spent the evening masquerading as two people whose lives could fit together, and yet when they were their true selves, they were mortal enemies.

He gently caressed her cheek, coaxing her off his shoulder to meet his eyes once more.

“Rey,” he began but realized that the words that he had planned to say seemed so feeble. He dropped his hand, breaking their gaze, and stepped away.

“The Force...the Force wouldn’t bring you to me just to make you some untouchable treasure. I don’t know how, but…” he paced, frustrated at his inability to say what he wanted. He ran his fingers through his sweat-dampened hair in irritation.

“When I was at my lowest, loneliest point, I found you, okay? And I didn’t think it was possible that you...some scavenger girl shooting at me in the forest of some backwater world could change my life so thoroughly. But then I saw you appear to me in the Force somehow, and you changed everything I ever believed. And now, when I needed you again, I was able to get a bounty hunter that brought you to me.”

That sounded absolutely dreadful, and he knew it. He groaned in frustration and pivoted again.

“The Force keeps bringing me back to you, and I have no reason to believe it will stop, just because we stop believing that we will find a way.”

He paused and turned to her.

“Rey, against all reason and judgment, I’m in love with you. I have tried to stop, and I can’t, but...here you are. So if you being here with me now isn’t a reason to believe that we might one day find a way to be together, against the odds, then…” he trailed off, embarrassed at the crudeness of his speech.

“I will never stop waiting for you,” he whispered, everything finally falling into place.

Dazed, delirious, still half crying, Rey stepped slowly into Ben's orbit again, her eyes unable to leave his face. A face that had once haunted her nightmares but now was the dearest sight in the universe to her. A face she had carved her mark into at a moment of rage and passion. A face that...loved her.

"Ben Solo," she whispered as she approached him, the bond between them practically vibrating.

Rey reached up to him, held his face gently in her small, scarred, scavenger's hands.

"Never tell me the odds," she murmured.

She pressed her lips to his, and the Force sang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I tell you what, I was pretty grumpy when I had to pivot from writing a super happy fluffy/angsty love story to writing an extended action sequence WITHOUT ANY DANCING.
> 
> Why did I do this to me.
> 
> Oh yeah but also they kissed this time yayyy


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Oh? What was it you said earlier? Something about you never being safe as long as I'm in the galaxy?" His deep voice was a playful whisper. "You would trust me? Your worst enemy?"

Ben Solo was still intoxicated by the feeling of Rey’s mouth on his when at last they stumbled into the center of the city, hand in hand and exhausted from their flight from the secluded hills above.

When her lips first met his, he had doubted the sincerity of the sensation coming from his mouth and echoing through the Force. A hidden part of him had hoped for this moment since he and Rey had first touched across the galaxy, so naturally he was certain he had missed her lips, or was sloppy and embarrassing or something disturbingly off-putting to her, but Rey just held onto him tighter, pulling him in for a second kiss. A third.

The Force was a song swirling around them; it was a dance unto itself. He wrapped his arms around her waist and hoisted her into the air, never wanting to stop for breath. She was the air in his lungs, she was the blood making his heart race faster in his chest. She was the center of the galaxy, for all he cared. Her fingers curled through his hair like she wanted to be in control of all of him. He wanted that, too.

Eventually he lowered her back to the ground, the smiles in their eyes suddenly a fire that put the nearest stars to shame. He knew they would have continued, but he felt a vibration in his pocket: his commlink. Ben’s temper flared at the interruption, but he turned the device on regardless.

“Supreme Leader, I have heard that there is some sort of commotion on the planet’s surface located near our original rendezvous point,” Bazine said. “I should expect that you are thriving, if not the cause of the disruption.”

She managed to deliver a message with absolute indifference that would otherwise be full of concern; Rey almost thought she sounded bored by the state of her client’s well being, and had opted to check in merely for the sake of appearances.

“There was an attack at the party,” Ben said, trying to match his boredom with hers. “My date and I made it out safely. The same can’t be said for the rest of the guests.”

“Pity,” Bazine said, clearly unaffected by the large-scale loss of life. “There appears to be a large amount of activity from local authorities on the landing pad where I am supposed to meet you. Many intergalactic transit ports have also been blocked off due to the increased security presence.”

“What are you saying?” Ben asked archly.

“I’m saying that even if I was able to reach our agreed meeting point, they are not permitting any ships to land in Canto Bight until the security alert has expired,” Bazine replied, her boredom turning to frustration at having to spell all this out.

“No ships are permitted at all?”

Bazine sighed, exasperated. “It looks as though the security alert will not be lifted until morning.”

“Remain in orbit and ready to land once at a public landing site once the alarm is lifted,” Ben said rigidly, stifling the joy he felt at not having to part from Rey quite yet. “I will compensate you for your time.”

With an exasperated murmur of agreement, Bazine ended the call.

He could feel Rey’s question before she asked it.

“So you will be joining me after all, I take it?”

With her arms crossed in front of her chest and her tattered gown billowing in the breeze, she no longer appeared to him as a dark queen, aloof and cold on her pedestal. Instead she looked like a feral thing, a creature of battle, and he adored her all the more for it.

“If I can’t get in touch with the First Order, then this would likely be my only way off this rock,” he said, his duty to the regime no longer as pressing as it was moments prior. “But given that none of the ‘troopers came looking for me when the attack happened, I can’t imagine they made it out alive.”

He realized that he had abandoned his holoprojector on the dresser in his room; he had no doubt Hux was calling him frantically, trying to determine if tonight was the night all his dreams came true and Kylo Ren was finally murdered, eliminating the need for getting his hands dirty in dispatching his rival.

There were other ways of contacting the First Order, Ben knew, but keeping Rey safe from any further attackers or the scrutiny of his subordinates were his primary concerns.

He knew that his imminent departure with the First Order was a sore subject with Rey, so he didn’t dare bring it up again; he wasn’t sure his resolve would hold again if she asked him to run away with her one more time. At least after their last conversation she understood why he couldn’t bring himself to go with her. She knew his fears, and he knew hers. They were different than they had been the first time their minds had melded, curling around one another, revealing the secret loneliness and aches that plagues both Force users; now, their hopes and fears seemed to both revolve around one another, a terrifying fulcrum that provided endless opportunity for disaster, but one neither wanted to forswear.

She took his hand again, and they prowled through the outskirts of the city on high alert, unsure whether or not the attack had been isolated to the party, or if any insurgents were out hunting for survivors in the shadowy beige stone alleys. They felt in the Force around every corner, peering carefully around each turn before taking any steps. Ben tensed at the roar of every passing luxury speeder that sped by them in the narrow brick streets, but all passed without incident.

The two tried to keep a low profile, walking like a couple that was late for a very important social appointment. Though superficially they rushed through the streets in near silence, Rey knew that they probably appeared quite harried to onlookers as they darted from street to street. Exchanging brief observations through the Force, they navigated their way toward heavily trafficked areas where the likelihood of any attacks were lessened. As they wound through the streets, it became increasingly apparent that the evening’s horrors were all contained in Shwa’rarth’s manor in the hills.

However, despite their attempts to portray a cool indifference, they couldn’t have been more conspicuous.They were dressed like many of the wealthy couples in the city, but under even the slightest amount of scrutiny, the illusion failed. Ben’s boots were caked in dust from the roads leading into the city. His ink black jacket was marred by singe marks, and the silver embroidered sleeves were scorched by the exhaust ports of his lightsaber. His cape had suffered the most; the fine crimson lining was pock-marked with black burns where stray blaster fire had made contact. Rey’s gown, though still elegant, was notably worse for wear. Few casual observers could miss the uneven patch of fabric missing from the front her skirt, baring her knees and worn brown boots. The rest of the gown had been dragging behind her through layers of dirt and mud in the streets, resulting in a layer of brown muck caking the hem of the dress.

The passersby on the streets were far less scrutinizing than the other party guests had been, and only a few glances turned into any sort of lingering stares.

They entered a neighborhood with enough calm revelers pouring out of clubs and restaurants to relax their frantic hunting, at least a bit. They followed several groups to a small, brightly-lit plaza packed with party-goers. The large square was surrounded on all sides by late-night cafes and stalls selling delicious-smelling street foods from a variety of worlds. Now that they had relaxed their guards, Rey’s eyes seemed to wander the plaza with awe. She had not shown Ben many memories of her life since leaving Jakku, likely out of a desire to protect her friends in the Resistance, but he could feel her childlike amazement at being surrounded by so many ornate buildings. She even could spot a few chips and cracks in the surrounding stonework, likely caused by the falthiers Finn and Rose had helped to escape. She couldn’t help but beam with pride at her friends’ handiwork.

 _This seems as good a place as any to rest_ , Ben indicated to Rey. Guiding her by the hands they still clasped, they sat at the edge of a large fountain in the center of the plaza.

 _I think the worst of it is over,_ he thought, gazing around at the small clusters of humanoids and aliens laughing and talking as they drank tea and caf, preparing to transition from one club or party to another. He looked at her, her face streaked with evidence of their earlier struggle. Her makeup was smudged from sweat, and the silver band around her forehead fell to a slant in their furious escape.

Sitting before him, she seemed so powerful, yet so vulnerable. He reached out tentatively, and brushed a bit of dirt off her cheek.

"Oh," she stuttered, "do I have something...?"

She turned around, looking down at her reflection in the placid depths of the fountain, shaking her head and tutting wearily. What a mess. Without ceremony, she disentangled the circlet from her hair, looking at it critically before putting it aside.

 _Probably couldn't have gotten more than a half portion for that,_ she thought, more to herself than to her companion. Pretty dress or no, she would always be a scavenger.

Leaning down, she almost reverently scooped up handfuls of the cool water, scrubbing her face free of the worst of the dirt and smudges before gently rinsing off the dust and sweat at her neck. She sighed in contentment. She'd never really get used to having such ready access to so much water. She lifted one of the outer layers of her tattered skirt and blotted at the wetness ineffectually. It was then that she finally seemed to notice that Ben's eyes had yet to leave her.

"Did I miss a spot?" she asked quietly, her voice sounding so small and innocent in comparison to the haughty disdain of her persona.

For the second time that night, Ben Solo laughed, but this time, it was a warm bark. Rey’s behaviors were far from the stifled, prim ones she had performed at the gala as Lady Viré. He wasn’t sure the water in the fountain was the freshest or cleanest, but she had probably had to make do with worse on Jakku. She was efficient and practical, ever the survivor in any situation. He adored that about her.

“No, I was just thinking,” he began, a light smile still playing on his lips. “About how beautiful you are.”

Her cheeks blazed and her heart fluttered. Rey had never been a slave to her appearance, nor did she have any inflated ideas about what she looked like. No one had ever called her beautiful before. And now it was coming from the most unlikely of people. And he was smiling. And laughing. Really laughing. She wondered if this was what Ben Solo had been like before the darkness claimed him.

She beamed back at him, her Force signature incandescent.

"Well, now I'm thinking that I rather like it when you smile," she murmured. "It suits you."

His face dropped suddenly. “Then I’ll have to stop that right away.”

Rey snorted, immediately covering her mouth.

"Did...did you just...make a joke?"

He pursed his lips in a bizarre, smug snarl: his impression of Armitage Hux.

"Impossible. As the Supreme Leader I find everything that cannot be controlled or mined for resources humorless."

Laughter bubbled out of her like a deep spring. The absurdity of his face mixed with the release of long-held adrenaline and stress finally broke her and she threw her head back in wild abandon, not caring who heard or saw. He found with her near it was easier for him to laugh, and he watched her, chuckling as he absorbed the full force of her joy. As the laughs died down, she leaned her head against his arm, still giggling softly.

"Haaa," she exhaled, twisting up to rest her chin on the point of his shoulder, eyes twinkling up at him. "This is lovely, Ben."

“What, surviving a massacre of wealthy First Order sympathizers?” He realized he may have tried too hard to be funny on that one. He never could master his father’s smooth, charismatic delivery. “I’m sorry about this. I feel like I have risked your safety too many times this evening.”

Rey just smiled softly and leaned up to press a kiss to his jaw, her lips catching on the line of his scar. Her lips were a spark of electricity in the Force, and he felt awakened by her touch.

"It's alright," she murmured. "I was never in any real danger. You were with me."

"Oh? What was it you said earlier? Something about you never being safe as long as I'm in the galaxy?" His deep voice was a playful whisper. "You would trust me? Your worst enemy?"

She winced as cruel words she had spoken in anger were returned to her. They hurt, even said in jest. She sat back from him, suddenly very interested in the dirt on her hemline. The bond stuttered as her regret silently ate at her insides.

"I'm sorry I said that," she mumbled, her throat clenching. "I can't imagine a galaxy without you, enemy or not."

“No, you were right in saying it,” he said, shifting his arm to pull her closer. “Don’t doubt your perceptiveness. This plan was crazy. You would have been justified in turning your back and getting back on Bazine’s ship, never to see me again. I’m just…”

He bit his lips, struggling to put his emotions into words.

“You were unarmed in a room full of hostiles, and you...you trusted me with your life.” He paused. “I’m honored to have earned your trust.”

She melted again in his embrace, sinking into the solid warmth of his body. Touching him had become so easy, so natural; she wondered absently when that had happened. Turning her face up to him again with a small smile, she nuzzled against his neck, a silent reply to his words. It felt right, being this close to him. It made her feel whole.

"So," she whispered after a while. "You're in love with me?"

He was glad she wasn’t at an angle to see the color rising in his wan cheeks. He mentally fumbled over several possible explanations for his statement, debated about whether or not a simple affirmation would suffice, when he was interrupted by a loud roar. His stomach.

She raised an eyebrow.

"Not quite the answer I was expecting," she deadpanned.

She stood up with a cheeky grin. "You know, I always wondered if you spoke Shyriiwook, since you grew up with Chewie around so much," she snickered. "Now I know."

There was no hiding the scarlet in his long face now.

"When my voice dropped, my family used to say it was deep enough that I should try to learn."

He dipped his head, trying to conceal his bashful expression.

"I could never understand the syntax well enough to learn more than a few phrases."

Rey laughed easily, hands planted on her hips, looking down at him with such affection that it made his heart skip a beat. She held a hand out to him.

"Well come on then, let's find something to eat," she said.

She paused a moment, seeming to gather something in her chest. Then she let out a comically mispronounced set of growls and chuffs before dissolving again into giggles.

"You got the glottal stops all wrong," he mumbled, a slight air of offense in his tone, but he couldn't help but suppress a chuckle as well as he took her hand.

"I was trying to ask you how you like your caf, but apparently that was lost in translation," she bit out between giggles.

With his free hand, he rifled through his pockets for coins. He had brought a few pieces of local currency before he had disembarked from the transport, though he could not remember if they had made it into his jacket pocket or if they, like the holoreceiver, had been left on the dresser in the guest quarters Shwa’rarth had loaned him. Instead, he pulled out her discarded hair pins with dismay.

She gestured with toward her discarded circlet. "Think we might be able to get something for that? I don't know if Cantonica has a barter system."

He shrugged. "You would know more about bartering than I do. And if all else fails, I know you can be very persuasive with the Force when you want to be."

He gestured to a nearby food stall that lacked any sort of queue in front of it. "Care to try your luck?"

She rolled her neck, smiling wickedly.

 

As it turned out, Rey could be quite persuasive. And the haul had been delicious.

They ate their spread of meat pies and a soup of blue noodles, washed down with caf while sitting on the fountain's ledge. Here, Rey was able to eat comfortably with her hands without any fear of judgment, while Ben was able to eat real food for a change. He had consumed some protein portions before landing that morning, but had missed any sort of dinner because of his meeting with Shwa'rarth before the gala; this easily was more delectable than anything the First Order served him.

This was not the prescribed behavior for the Supreme Leader, but Ben found that he simply did not care anymore. He could barely remember the last time he had been this liberated, unconstrained by the expectations of his family, the Jedi, the First Order. The Darkness that usually hounded at his mind was distant, vague. He was able to let his eyes wander over Rey hungrily as he ate, now free to worship her openly. His eagerness and anticipation was a quake in the Force.

Ben hadn't known joy like this since childhood.

Rey could feel the contentment, no, _happiness_ , rolling off of Ben in waves as they ate in companionable silence. Every so often she'd look up from her noodles and catch him just...looking at her. She'd offer a small, blushing smile and continue with her soup. She didn't know what to do with this new kind of affection. Jakku had afforded her no kindnesses and even the Resistance, for all its good intentions and good people, was still just an organization on a mission. Besides the comfort of her friendships, there wasn't much room for love in its ranks. His soft, dark eyes on her were unwavering and she could feel a smoldering heat beginning to rise in her stomach that wasn't from the food.

"You know," she said slowly as she laid her empty bowl aside. "You never did answer my question."

He took his eyes off of her, suddenly fascinated with the last few bites of his meat pie.

"What question?"

She took a deep breath.

"You're in love with me," she stated more than asked.

He could sense from her tone this was no longer a playful game. He shoved the pie in his mouth and dusted the crumbs off his hands, avoiding her gaze. He failed, but after clearing his mouth, tried to explain.

"I don't know if I realized it tonight or just waited until you accepted my offer to be my date to let myself admit it, but...something in me has wanted you for a long time, in a...variety of ways," he said, his voice barely a whisper.

"But when you asked me to teach you to dance, you looked into my mind, and I felt...whole. You fit into my mind, my memories like you belonged there, as part of me. And I couldn't lie to myself anymore."

He seemed to regret his words. He rolled his jaw in a sort of shame-filled irritation.

“Well, are you surprised? Disappointed? Angry?” His voice took on a tone of defensiveness. “I know I am the antithesis of everything you are, but I guess after all that’s happened tonight, it makes sense that I should finally let you know why I did all this."

He sighed, running his hand through his hair before finally looking her in the eye again.

"It was selfish of me to bring you here, I know that, but I had hoped that if I saw you one final time, maybe I could believe this was the end. Bazine would bring you to me, you'd reject me to my face, and I would never have to think of you like that again. Like there was nothing between us."

He boldly leaned in closer to her. "But none of that happened the way I planned, did it?"

Rey let his words sink into her soul, let his emotions curl around hers in a gentle waltz of their own. She was drawn into his orbit again, feeling like her heart was caught in a tractor beam that she never wanted to escape. She leaned in with him, their faces suddenly very close.

"No," she whispered. "None of that happened. And I hope you don't stop thinking about me like that...because I think I might be in love with you, too."

He leaned forward, closing what little space had been left between them.

"Good, because I've been wanting to this for a while," he said, before pressing his lips to hers again, feeling a melody stir in the Force between them.

The first kisses they had shared on the hills were small, tentative, shy things, barely more than a brush of skin against skin fizzing with static. This was something entirely different. Electric. As if Rey had swallowed sleeping lightning that the heat of Ben had reignited. She couldn't stop her hands from coming up to coil around his neck and shoulders, her fingers weaving through his soft dark hair. She sighed into him as her eyes fell closed.

He kissed her earnestly, desperately, feeling the yearning in his heart finding a home with her. He knew his tenderness was quickly giving way to the deep hunger that consumed him, but she seemed to sense this, and began match his pace as his mouth explored hers more eagerly. He carefully placed one hand down in the midst of their makeshift picnic so the other could find its place on her back, picking up where he had left off in the ballroom. The Force hummed with his contentment.

When she finally had to pull away for breath, Rey's eyes were hazy and her lips were pink. She gasped for air as she tried to force her brain back into coherence.

"Ben, love," she breathed. "Maybe we shouldn't do this in the middle of a fountain?"

She pressed another quick kiss to his lips, unable to be parted from him for long.

"Let's run away."

His eyes were warm and full of adoration. He didn’t want to stop, nor felt any reason to, given that no one seemed to notice them, much less mind their very obvious displays of affection, but he would have murdered everyone in the plaza had she merely asked.

He hurried to clear away the soup bowls and returned the dishes to the stand. Holding out his hand, she took it, and they gleefully bounded away from the plaza, travelling through a nearby alleyway, the Force rollicking in their wake.

They flew through the side streets and alleys, legs barely stable beneath them. Ben stopped suddenly and turned to her, pinning her against a wall with one arm braced near her head and the other resting on her waist, the rough stone cool against her back.

She froze, staring deep into his warm eyes, absorbing the hunger, the wanting that haunted them, the way she haunted him for so many nights. She could feel in the Force what he wanted to do before he did it; she met his gaze, and his mouth met hers in a kiss, firm and sure but brief. He pulled back and Rey looked at him, her eyes suddenly full of ferocity, and she snaked her hand back to the nape of his neck, curling her fingers in his hair again. She pulled his mouth to hers, and kissed him harder, more intensely than he had imagined was possible from the petite young woman.

 _Don’t think you can tease me like that, Solo,_ her thoughts hissed a warning.

“Oh,” he exhaled, his low voice a muted rumble in the empty alley. “I intend to do much more than tease you.”

Before she could fire back a response, his mouth found the point where her neck and shoulder meet, the beautiful canyon of bone and muscle, covered only partially by her loose hair. He left a trail of warm kisses as her fingers flexed in his hair, drawing him in closer. She felt suddenly warm, a pleasurable burning sensation flowing from her skin. Her neck, obviously, tingled where Ben Solo’s mouth was lavishing attention on her, and her hands felt the heat of his neck trapped beneath his damp, wavy hair, but the heat spread through her veins, from the top of her head to the toes of her boots, taking her by surprise.

She had never felt wanting consume her like this, but she was not afraid of it.

She sought to control it.

A small, feral growl emitted from her throat, and she moved her hand from his neck to his cheek, tracing her thumb along the line of his scar. While his mouth was occupied, she started tugging at the almost invisible black buttons on his jacket, working her way up his chest to the high collar. With one final kiss marked by a graze of his teeth, he withdrew his mouth from her neck to revel in her touch along his throat. The last button freed, she let her hands wander along his abdomen, an unfamiliar sensation lighting under her hands. She brought her mouth to his, pressing her lips with exasperation, demanding.

 _You’re not the only one skilled at this game,_ she thought. His mind sent a growl in response.

His hand moved from the wall to touch her, cradle her. One fell on her shoulder chastely above the strap of her dress, while the palm of the other felt the smooth plane of her back, moving in small, lazy strokes. He liked the thrum of her under his fingertips. It made his kisses more urgent, more desperate, as her bloodstream sang to him. His other hand drifted again to her ribs, where his fingers lighted delicately between them, tapping a delicate rhythm beneath them. Feeling her pleasured response to his touch, he slowly moved his hand up towards her breast, his thumb sliding over the front of her dress. She pulled his lip tight between her teeth in response. She dragged her hands roughly over his taught stomach, and he suppressed the moan that threatened to escape from his otherwise occupied mouth.

As she trailed kisses down his jaw, along the line of his scar, her hands likewise descended toward the straining pressure in his trousers, he felt that restraint challenged.

He split apart from her as a groan of pleasure forced its way out from his mouth.

“ _Cyar'ika,_ ” he growled into her shoulder. She briefly assumed his expression was a swear of some sort, but his thought swept through her mind a moment later: _Darling._

Panting, his eyes met hers once more, but their attention was quickly diverted to a nearby wild cacophony of clanging and cheering.  
  
“Do you hear that?” he asked.

Her face lit up and she grabbed his other hand, pulling him towards the sound. As they rounded the corner, Rey pulled him backwards into a small cluster of locals spinning and laughing.

"Dance with me," she said, brooking no argument, her eyes already twinkling. Ben almost fell over at Rey’s insistent tugging.

The music, more wild and brash than the waltzes at the gala had been, was spilling onto the patio of a small cantina on a narrow side street overlooking the sea. Brightly-colored lanterns were strung up overhead, giving the area a dreamy quality as the lively dancers whirled around in the kaleidoscope created by the scattered light.

This dance had no prescribed pattern, no established steps, and he had no practice, but that did not deter Rey in the slightest from dragging him onto a crowded dance floor and leaving him to find some sort of comfortable motion to the beat.

 _Stop thinking so hard about it!_ she nearly sang in his head as she beamed up at him. _Just feel it!_

Letting go of his hands, she let the music sweep through her and spun in giddy circles while she clapped along with the drumbeat. Her loosened hair whirled freely around her head in a chestnut blur and the remnants of her skirts flared out in a fog of shimmering grays.

She was radiant, a cloud of delight, and he was unworthy of her. His anxiety threatened to root him to the spot just beyond the crush of dancers, but he felt pulled, magnetized out to her. He caught her spinning form and met her eyes, full of life, calling for him to join her. He took her hand and spun her under his arm. He heard her laugh, a sound more lovely than the music, and couldn't help but smile. His terror melted away, and though he was not a skilled dancer, he was fearless because of her. He felt the Force flowing through the dancers, through the music, and was soon stepping with her, spinning her, catching her, feeling her fly around him until she came to rest in his arms.

He found he loved dancing.

They whirled together through the blazes of color and light, their bond singing with joy as they danced song after song. Their hands constantly stole purchase on each other’s bodies. His lighted on her waist and back, occasionally daring to travel over her damp, bare skin, while her fingers curled against his shoulder, his neck, his jaw, occasionally weaving through his hair, forcing him to look into her eyes, to know the depth and power of their connection. The sea rushed quietly in the distance.

They found themselves covered in sweat after several songs, Rey’s hair clinging to her face and neck, and Ben’s black undershirt marked by darkened patches where he sweat through the garment. With his disheveled attire and an occasional smile coming to rest on his face, she never would have guessed this man could possibly be the Supreme Leader that so ferociously terrorized the Resistance. She found herself again and again whirling in ecstasy to the music and coming to rest in his arms, both of their bodies warm and damp with sweat from the exertion.

She wished the night could go on like this forever.

Rey could feel herself tiring, however. She realized it with a pang as Ben's lips brushed against her temple while he held her close through a slower song. Sleepily, she wordlessly projected the water through the bond. She wanted to see the ocean before she fell asleep. Before this waking dream would end.

With an arm wrapped protectively around her waist, Ben lead her to the boardwalk. Somewhere a clock tower tolled the late hour, but the city was still so alive, so vibrant, propelled by nocturnal creatures full of vice and hedonism. Though the since he arrived to Canto Bight had passed in a blur of motion, rage, and desperate longing, he knew that as soon as he got back on a First Order transport that time would feel much slower, a lurch of drudgery and repetition and bureaucracy. He held her tighter, wishing to keep her by his side.

Despite the protestations of several guards that the beach was closed for the night, Rey convinced them that they were permitted, and the two stole out onto the darkened beach.

The sight of the moonlit sea would never get old for Rey. How the vast waters danced like living glass under the globe of celestial light. She reached down and shucked off her old brown boots, crunching the cool, damp sand between her toes. This kind of sand was so different from Jakku; more solid and real than the constantly shifting grit caught in the endless windstorms of her home planet. Tiny bioluminescent creatures skittered along the line of the waves, making the water glow where it lapped against the shore. Stepping slowly and carefully away from Ben's sturdy grip, she allowed the cold water to rush over her tired feet. She sighed in blissful calm. If she could stay here, like this, with Ben forever, she would never feel that she did enough to deserve it.

He watched her from a distance, feeling her emotions through the Force, realizing the solemness of this ritual that she performed for only herself. He almost had to look away, for fear of trespassing on her. The ink black waves carried her dark skirts in and out to sea, her slender form looming like a spectral guardian of the ocean.

He hoped he would always be this amazed by her: by her resilience, her light, her passion, her caring. He was never worthy of any of it, but to be in her presence changed the way he felt the Force move through him. Like the tides before him, the dark seemed to recede at her presence, replacing the pain that drove him to become stronger, more powerful, something other than the son of Solo and Organa, with a desire to be loved, to be wanted, to be worthy of her love. To be hers.

He started to hum absent-mindedly has he watched her melt into the ocean.  
  
His voice floated down the beach to her, a low rolling hum from deep in his chest. Something about the melody, more snippet than song, spoke to the dusty child shivering in her hollowed out home in the desert. Something that Rey barely remembered, as if from a decades old dream. Or another life. It caught in her hair, in her mind, snaking through her veins with a comforting warmth that she understood as belonging. Peace.

She closed her eyes, letting the water saturate her desert soul until shoots of new growth, green little blossoms of hope and love and home, spread out through her mind. The song took root and she hummed softly in time with Ben’s bass rumble; she swayed to and fro in place, the waves and the humming creating a sort of meditation. Balance.

Though he was scared to disturb her, he was drawn to her tranquility. He carefully strolled over to where she stood in the surf. His song wrapped around them, cradling them both in memories, in a promise: _I will never stop waiting for you._  
  
He reached out, a request for permission, and he felt her invitation to join her. He gently traced a hand down her spine, and placed a kiss on her shoulder.

She sighed quietly, her heart blooming at his touch. She turned her head to look up at him, the glowing sea and the moonlight casting watery shadows and luminous pools on his face. He looked so calm. At peace. She couldn't bring herself to think about how fragile this peace was, how soundly it would be shattered when they parted. So instead she threaded her fingers through his and whispered with the tides.

"I love you, Ben."

He pressed his forehead to hers, and closed his eyes, letting the ache of love wash over them together.

“Thank you,” he whispered, his breath catching in his throat. “Thank you for being mine. If only for tonight.”

Her free hand came up to rest on the mark she had given him lifetimes ago in a snowy forest. When he had been a monster in a mask and she had been nobody. Before they had understood each other. Before they had fallen in love with the person on the other side of the war. He closed his eyes, relishing her touch. Rey kissed him tenderly, memorizing every last detail of this moment. He savored the feeling of her lips, her breath, her energy wrapping around them, holding them in the moment. She pulled back slowly, reluctantly, her forehead still pressed to his.

"I will always be yours," she vowed through silent tears. "I am always with you. And the next time I can touch you like this, I will not let you go again, beloved."

“ _Cyar'ika_ ,” he uttered the Mandalorian term of endearment. “No matter where in the galaxy you go, I will belong to you. Remember that. No more masks. No more lies. The next time we are together…”

His voice hitched, a sob threatening to rip him apart. “We will never be separated again.”

After a quick kiss sealed their promises, he scooped her up in his arms, carrying her back onto the beach as her arms curled around his neck. Calling her boots into his hand with the Force, he walked with her clutched to his chest until he settled under a small grove of trees near a short cliff face. Sweeping his cloak around them to keep out the chilly mist rolling off the sea, he cradled her on his lap as weariness began to claim her finally.

His humming returned as he held her close. She fought against the thick haze of exhaustion, trying to revel in his touch one last time. Her fingers snagged in his collar, her thumb running along her scar on his neck, moving slower and slower.

“Go to sleep, _cyar'ika,_ ” he whispered. “The morning won’t be kind to either of us, but you will need the energy to get back to your friends. I’ll watch over you until dawn. I’m here. Don’t worry.”

Rey tried to protest, but she felt the Force carrying her off to sleep as Ben mumbled the lyrics to an old Alderaanian lullaby into her hair; one his mother would sing to him when he was young until she was hoarse, a desperate attempt to clear the darkness from his mind long enough for him to rest:

_Mirrorbright shines the moon, as fires die to their embers_

_Those you loved are with you still—_ _The moon will help you remember_


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This is not goodbye,” she whispered. A promise and command.

Rey jerked awake to the sound of the waves crashing against the shore and a strange buzzing sensation near her hip. As the bright light of morning pulled her out of her last dream, she was stunned by the cramping of her muscles and the unusual position in which had awoken. She squirmed until she felt enough bony protrusions in her back and sides to remember that she had fallen asleep in the embrace a man who, only a day prior, she was certain was determined to kill her. She looked up at him. In the quiet of meditation, he looked serene. Beautiful, even.

Ben opened his eyes slowly, pulled out of a trance. She could feel the shape of him uncurl in the Force, like a flower of heat and sorrow blooming in the morning sunlight. He looked down at her, his features drawn. He tried to coax a smile on to his face.

“Morning, cyar'ika,” he mumbled, shifting slightly to free his arm from the tangle of Rey and his cape draped over them. Digging into his pocket, he activated the commlink.

“Rise and shine, Supreme Leader,” Bazine drawled. “The landing ban was lifted 15 minutes ago. When can I expect to make planetfall?”

Rey could hear Ben’s groan reverberating through his sternum. The Force seemed to bristle around them.

“I will locate a secure public pad within the hour and transmit the coordinates to you.”

“I am eagerly awaiting your transmission,” Bazine said, her buttery tone a clear attempt to gloss over her earlier irritation. Nevertheless, her desire to rid herself of this job and the Scavenger girl was evident.

“If I do not hear from you within the hour, I will check back in, otherwise our deal is voided, and I leave, girl or no girl,” she snapped before the line went silent.

Ben shifted upright, sliding the commlink back into his pocket. Rey gazed up at him once more, etching his face into her memory.

There was no doubt about it now: they would be parting soon. She could feel his dread curl around her desperately, as if he could keep her if only he were to blanket her in it.

It was impossible, he knew. He had rationalized it to her the night before, let her know his fears about joining her in the Resistance. However, during one of the many fitful meditation sessions he used to prevent himself from falling asleep along with his charge, he had realized another painful truth: she would not survive in the First Order. His ranks were poisonous with enemies and dissenters who believed him an unfit leader, and they would use her to harm him. Even if she were willing to abandon those she cared about for him, he would not be able to guarantee that she could get a job within the ranks that would keep her close enough to him that they could steal away and have a real relationship, or whatever they were to each other. And if he were to keep their relationship secret, she could never reveal her Force abilities again. He would not deprive her of that.

All the words he wanted to say failed on his lips, and she could think of nothing else to tell him; she felt his racing thoughts, knew he wanted to ask her to stay, to present her his hand once more and offer her the galaxy, but he could not take her away at the risk of losing everything she was, everything that made her precious to him. Her heart ached at this, and a streak of sorrow cleaved the Force around her; this was exactly why she had allowed herself to love Ben Solo, but why it was so dangerous to do so. She buried her face in his chest, smelling the sweat and the salt of his skin. He dropped a chaste kiss on the top of her head, watching the morning sun rising behind a smattering of clouds. He had been afraid that touching her would feel foreign again in the light of day, but he still felt the thrill of contact with none of the hesitation.

 _I will always be yours_ , she had promised. Those words were the only things that could compel him to leave the beach.

They watched as the early morning crews of pleasure vessels began to pull into port to resupply for the day’s various voyages. Animal cries punctured the gentle lull of the waves washing against the shore.

Against the will of her heart and every muscle in her body, Rey began to stir.

“I guess we should be going soon,” she mumbled into the collar of Ben’s undershirt.

“Soon,” he promised, pulling his arms tighter around her. “But not just yet.”

 

Rey thought she was finished shaking sand off of her when she had chosen to leave Jakku behind, but she found that a few stubborn grains had found their way into the cracks of her toes, as well as every fiber of her dress and boots. She shook out her shoes vigorously, but somehow with every shake still more sand kept falling out. She had never figured out how that much sand could get everywhere.

She knew that she and Ben probably cut a ridiculous pair as they stood along the boardwalk, shaking off their clothes and desperately trying to straighten their attire like two disheveled socialites recovering from a night of scandalous mischief.

That was not entirely false, she realized, but it was entirely comical for it to be happening to the Supreme Leader and a Resistance member masquerading as a member of Naboo nobility.

After Ben buttoned up his jacket and straightened out his cape, he ran his fingers through Rey’s hair, just as he had when removing her braid the night before, trying to comb out whatever tangles he could control. She had washed off most of her makeup in the fountain, and whatever remained she had sweated off while dancing, yet in the early morning glow, she looked more beautiful than he thought possible.

Maybe, he wondered, it was because today, in the light of day, she was his, and he was hers. He hoped the joy of their shared belonging radiated through both of them, and maybe he would look good to her for a change. Anything would be an upgrade from “nerf shit.”

Rey hurried into her boots. She absentmindedly ripped a small scrap of her skirt off and tied part of her hair back in the same style she had donned since their encounter on the Supremacy. She looked up at him, trying to read his face. Though he looked no more rested, she felt herself melting under his gaze. There was a softness, a beauty there that was absent when he had removed his helmet for the first time in the hallway. Desperation had been replaced with a mix of adoration and sorrow.

She stood on her toes and reached up her hand to brush a lock of his hair out of his face, combing her fingers through his hair as he had done hers. He gave her a goofy, toothy grin, one she never imagined she would see cross the face of Ben Solo, nor did she believe she would encounter again.

He pulled her into a kiss, one that quickly grew dark at their impending separation. They pulled apart, eyes meeting. They were running out of time.

She shivered as a cool breeze floated off the sea, the dread of their parting weighing on her. His intent gaze never leaving her, Ben removed his cape and wrapped it around her shoulders, pinning it on her. He kissed her on the forehead as his wide hands smoothed down the creases around her shoulders. She enjoyed being wrapped in the warmth and comfort of his essence. She closed her eyes, relishing it.

Ben offered her his hand. She took it, and together they walked toward the streets of Canto Bight, where several of the casino workers leaving their overnight shifts milled about as marketplace merchants began to set up their wares. Rey could trace the scents of caf, tea, and fresh baked goods pouring out of cafes. The couple melted into a crowd of bleary-eyed passersby. He pulled her closer, enjoying the light, the warmth of her delicate frame pressed against his side.

Following the air traffic coming and going from the edge of the city, they wordlessly wove their way to what they assumed was the public landing pad. Ben wanted to dig his heels into the stone streets and never give her up.

 

The invitation had been given to him by one of the junior advisors, but when the information was delivered to his hands, he felt like the entire assembly of First Order officers were carefully observing and measuring his reaction, as if credits were being wagered on his response. He processed the information presented to him on the datapad incredulously.

“What is this? A party?” His voice came out measured, cold, with a just touch of boredom through his mask. He was feeling utter confusion, but he had become proficient at masking it with other, more threatening emotions.

“Yes, my lord,” the advisor said. “From a fairly reliable friend of the Order.”

“And why should I care, pray tell.”

All other orders of business thus concluded in the meeting, Kylo Ren wanted to disappear to another corner of the ship away from these air-headed toadies. However, he grown accustomed to the fact that they would always slip one more thing in at the end of the meetings while he was already on his way out to avoid incurring his wrath early and dealing with suspended bouts of rage/

“Well, uh,” the officer stammered and looked around at his compatriots, who just nodded encouragingly. “We believe this might be a perfect opportunity to build relationships with important business leaders that will cement the First Order’s place as one of power in the galaxy.”

“ _Why should I care_?” he repeated, his robotic voice icier than before.

“Supreme Leader, if it’s not so bold to suggest, I would -- we think it would be politically advantageous to put forth the face of the First Order at this event.” The officer swallowed hard, terror rising in his face. “So that means, my lord…you would…”

A raised leather-gloved hand cut off the boy’s babbling without the need for a show of Force.

“You are all in accordance with this ludicrous plan.” Kylo Ren was beyond the point of playing question games with them.

Heads around the room nodded in assent, accompanied by a mumbled syncopated chorus of “Yes, my lord.”

General Hux, stepped forward. “Supreme Leader, I was likewise initially skeptical of the invitation when it was brought before me--”

“I am, of course, the last to know,” Kylo Ren deadpanned, as if rage was hovering just below the surface. In truth, he was too bored by the idea to even twitch a finger to cast one of the simpering officers spiraling into the wall. These were the typical doldrums of galactic leadership. But a formal party was unlike any task that his advisors had expected of him before. He had overseen executions across the galaxy, lead rallies and inspected ‘troopers, his officers demanding a more hands-on leadership role from him than Snoke had previously taken. It made sense, they explained, given his former position as Snoke’s fist, to be more visible than the previous Supreme Leader; this also allowed Hux to slink around behind the scenes.

Hux thought he was taking Kylo by surprise, but he knew what all of these maneuvers were achieving. He simply allowed Hux and the others to think that he could be so easily manipulated.

But a ball...memories flashed in his mind, parties with ladies in long formal gowns and finely dressed gentlemen whirling to music. His mother, wearing her best jewelry, her hair piled on her head, carrying him on her hip, her smile the brightest light in the room. For years he believed those sorts of events were far behind him. He had no desire to participate in those preposterous charades, and was prepared to tell the officers as much.

“My lord,” Hux continued. “I’m sure you understand that there were a number of logistical challenges associated with this plan, therefore I had to approve it before if could be presented to you. I believe that given the proper security precautions, this would be a very beneficial opportunity for the First Order. We were able to contact the gala’s host and ensure that you would be provided an ample platform to present the First Order’s position and gain their trust.”

“Do you perceive me as some sort of puppet?” Kylo boomed, genuine irritation beginning to form in place of his mock anger. “Does the First Order need to show me off like some sort of mad circus spectacle to affirm support, General? Are our recruiting efforts so lacking these days that you need to parade me around to _parties_? I absolutely will not stand for it.”

Hux continued to talk, to defend the ludicrous idea, but Kylo’s eyes drifted down the datapad in his hands. The details of the plan were written in achingly precise detail, in the typical First Order memorandum format, indicating the date — three weeks away — and the location — Cantonica — but there was an additional notice at the bottom:

_1 Additional Guest Welcome_

His stomach tightened. He thought back to the galas with his mother, and a picture came unbidden to his mind.

“I accept.”

He could feel the officers sighing in confused relief and hesitant victory as he rose from his chair.

“Excellent, my Lord,” Hux said, clapping, as if that would prevent the matter from any further changes. “We will coordinate with the tailors to see you properly attired for the event.”

“We can discuss the trivialities at a later date,” Kylo said dismissively. “I have other matters to attend to.” He stormed out without another word, effectively ending the meeting.

Left to his own devices in the empty corridors of the dreadnought, staring through the viewport at a vast, silent galaxy, he revisited the image that had flashed unbidden into his head when contemplating the ball: he had envisioned himself amongst the dancers in his memories, but with Rey in his arms, spinning and whirling around with him, a smile lighting on her face.

It was a beautiful, soothing image, and he allowed himself to momentarily indulge in it, but then cleared it from his mind.

No, he couldn’t allow himself to think of her like that. Since their last Force encounter on Crait, he had struggled to connect to her, to see her for more than a glimpse on several occasions. He had given up feeling in the Force for her, because her side of their connection had been silent for so long.

His early days as Supreme Leader had been wracked by his anguish at her absence. When he had felt her in the Force for those precious few days before she came to him on the Supremacy, he had felt whole. There was a dreadful lightness to him, certainly, and that had challenged his ability to more fully embrace the Darkness, but he had been so intoxicated by her presence in his mind that the anguish and suffering that usually accompanied his days was a distant, harmless thing. He would have given anything to have kept her by his side, to feel her near him, to let her into his head once more until he felt complete.

He was Supreme Leader now. He had borne the legacy of Darth Vader. He had achieved everything he wanted, but was incomplete without her.

It was ludicrous, he knew. He couldn’t believe he had even entertained the idea of Rey joining him for this gala. He had no idea if she was even still alive, and if she was, she would likely rather die than join him. Beyond all of that, he realized, he had no idea how he would find her again.

He clenched his fists to try to control the rage coursing through him, his left hand hovering over the bowcaster wound on his side.

He froze.

He didn’t know where she was, but she was part of the Resistance, and they were not completely invisible in the eyes of the First Order.

He started pacing.

And even if he could not find Rey himself, he knew that there were a number of bounty hunters and mercenaries who would cooperate and bring her to him. For the right price, of course, but he had money of his own. Cost was no matter.

 _But could I really go through with it_?

It was foolish, he knew. A childlike fantasy. He would debase himself for a scrawny little Resistance junk trader from Jakku.

On this matter, he could not lie to himself. She was more than that. She was the only other Force user in the galaxy, but more than that, she was the only one who had seen inside his mind, and rather than run away from him, had come to him, welcomed him into her own mind for who he was. He had been crushed when Snoke revealed to him that he had manipulated her through him, used his weakness as a ploy to bring Rey to the Supremacy to kill her. He had felt her deepest sorrows and found himself feeling compassion for her, and she in turn had trusted him. He could not stand that trust being used against him when it was from the person for whom he had felt his first real emotion in years. He killed Snoke for power, yes, and for Rey; he could not let her die for the madman’s evil games.

For whatever reason, he could not see her in the Force now, but if he were to see her face-to-face again, to hear from her mouth that she would never join him, never want the monster that was Kylo Ren, maybe he would be able to relieve himself of his childish obsession with the girl.

He stormed off to his quarters to begin preparations, his thoughts rapid.

_If she says yes, if she joins me that one night…_

He imagined her in a gown and a smile, looking at him with the warmth and trust he had seen in the Force before they touched.

The image morphed into her taking his hand. Training under him. Sitting beside him — not just sitting, standing by his side before legions of Stormtroopers, clad in black.

He didn’t know if it was a vision from the Force or his own warped imagination, but he could not shake the images from his head.

 _If she says yes,_ he thought, _then at least one of us is doomed._

 

The landing pad was packed with traffic from delayed passenger transports and cargo freighters. Ben was able to get the coordinates from a harried looking droid, and transmitted them to Bazine. She announced shortly after that she was queued for landing.

Ben’s shoulders tensed. Rey placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Where will you go?” she asked softly.

“Back to the house, probably,” he said, unable to meet her gaze. “The First Order will be seeking me there.”

“How do you know? I thought all your Stormtroopers were killed.”

“As far as I know, they were,” he said. “But you don’t need to be alive for the First Order to find you.”

She narrowed her eyes, a question.

“The First Order puts trackers in many officers’ clothing. This suit was specially made for tonight, so it doesn’t have one, but the belt of my regular tunic does. It should still be in the guest room.”

She tried to smother her frustration. “They’ll be looking for you.”

“Yes, if they aren’t already.”

She wanted to beg him to come with her again, to join her on Bazine’s ship, but she knew that almost all the words that could pass between them on the matter had already been said. The comfortable, sorrowful silence that passed between them was heavy with their declarations of the night before. But she couldn’t let him go without one final promise.

She grabbed his hand and pulled him out to a corner of the busy landing pad away from the hubbub and scrutiny of the other departing passengers.

Taking his face in her hands, her eyes met his.

“This is not goodbye,” she whispered. A promise and command.

Stretching up to her full height, she pressed her lips to his, and he curled his arms around her waist, anchoring her to the moment. The Force was a river between them, presenting them with countless possible connecting futures, starting grim and gradually growing more and more beautiful until they felt their hearts might burst from the possibilities before them.

And just as quickly as the visions appeared, they faded, leaving the pair breathless and painfully aware of what they could not have.

Ben pressed his forehead to hers.

“I will wait for you, no matter how long it takes,” he said, his eyes red as a sob threatened to escape from his throat. “If you ever feel alone…”

She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck, in his dark hair.

“I won’t block you out,” she whispered. “Never again. I’ll find you.”

He couldn’t hold in the tears anymore, and they flowed freely down his thin, scarred cheeks.

“I’m yours, Ben,” she promised, and he held her as close as their bodies would allow.

All words died on his lips. He rocked her carefully, humming the lullaby from the night before, until they both sensed a familiar ship pulling into the planet’s atmosphere.

They pulled apart, and they watched as Bazine’s ship slowly descend onto the pad. Brushing the streaks of tears from his cheeks, he took her hand and held onto it as if his life depended on it. They walked forward to meet Bazine on the gangway. Emerging from the hold, she stared down at the pair in disgust.

“How is it possible that you look worse than when I left you with him?" she asked, sighing like a disappointed mother at Rey. Struggling to maintain his composure, Ben released his beloved’s hand, then placed his palm in its usual resting place on her lower back, nudging her gently up the gangplank towards Bazine.

“My lord,” Bazine purred, a slight air of surprise in her voice. “I almost didn’t recognize you without the mask.”

“Good,” he said coldly. “You’re going to forget my face.”

She smirked, one razor sharp eyebrow arched in amusement. “I will forget it as long as you don’t forget what you owe me for waiting for you all night.”

“I will wire the credits when I return to my ship. You have my word,” he said, his voice suddenly rough. She was prepared to continue to toy with him, but she saw the vacancy in his eyes, and a deep understanding crossed her expression.

“Of course, my lord,” she said, pausing. “If you need another moment, I have to check a short in our landing gear. But be prepared to leave immediately after.” She strolled past them down the ramp, giving them a final moment of privacy.

When Ben turned to Rey, he noticed this time, it was her eyes that were full of tears, and many had already spilled over.

He wiped her cheeks with his thumb, planting an electrifying kiss on each.

His sorrowful eyes met hers one last time.

“Never forget,” he said. “I am yours, Rey. I will be yours wherever you go. If you feel alone, just look to the stars. You’ll find me.”

Theirs lips met one final time, her fingers clutching frantically at his face, his drinking in every last drop of warmth he could absorb from her bare back, a moment of passion mixed with desperation. They pulled apart reluctantly as Bazine returned behind them.

“Until next time, Supreme Leader,” Bazine said, marching up the gangway.

With one last heavy glance down at him, Rey followed her up, Ben’s black cape swaying behind her. As the ramp began to close, Rey turned to face him one final time.

 _I’m yours Ben,_ her thoughts curled lovingly around his mind. _And I always will be._

Walking away from the ship, he watched it lift off of the landing pad and take off into the cloudy morning sky. He did not turn away until it was too far away to see, at which point he finally broke his gaze. Digging in his pocket, he pulled on his gloves before storming off into the city, his sights set once again on the manor in the hills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The hazards of writing and editing your fanfic on your phone: I was texting my boyfriend "Morning" and my phone autocompleted "cyar'ika."
> 
> He now wants to be called that.


	14. Epilogues

When Rey’s skimmer was finally released from Bazine’s hull, the ship’s communications relay lit up frantically. While the skimmer had been offline, the Resistance had apparently tried to contact Rey at least once every hour, as she had discovered the instant the ship went back online.

A call came in within moments of her taking off. She could barely keep up with the controls.

“Rey!? Do you read me? Hello?” A familiar voice rang out in panic.

“Rose!” Rey felt a wave of relief roll over her. “I’m here! What do you need?”

“Oh kriffing finally!!” Rose exclaimed. “We were so worried about you! We last tracked you outside of the Abregado system, and then you vanished. Your signature went offline for about a day; is everything alright?”

“Yes, everything’s fine now, I’m okay,” she said, reciting the lies she had practiced to herself while Bazine and her crew had flown her back near the general coordinates where they had abducted her. “I had a major power coupling failure in my comm array, so I had to turn back to Bith. Took a while to fix, but I’m on my way back to base.”

“Thank goodness! We were all terrified. Finn is back, too. We’ve all been in knots waiting for you to come home! Oh!” The eagerness in Rose’s voice quickly gave way to a more severe tone. “And General Organa wants to speak with you.”

Rey couldn’t help the sinking feeling in her chest. She usually enjoyed the company of the older woman; why did she feel so guilty to see her now?

It was the memories she had seen, the secret, intimate moments the Resistance matriarch had likely not shared with anyone. Leia Organa the mother, teaching her son to dance, telling him stories of a lost homeworld to get him to fall asleep, smiling and laughing all the while, not yet battered by the darkness threatening to consume the young boy. Leia as a wife, being doted on by her husband as he let down her hair, the couple teasing each other affectionately. Senator Leia Organa balancing the duties of the New Republic and the new family she had created in the rubble of her homeworld and the ashes of an Empire.

Her Republic, her family, her Resistance, all of it had been destroyed by the son she had loved. The son who was willing to destroy everything to feel something besides sadness and loneliness. The son who now loved Rey.

Rey tried not to think on it anymore. This wasn’t the time. Her trip to Canto Bight had served a purpose beyond keeping an...acquaintance company, and she needed to focus on the matter at hand. 

“Good, I have to speak to her, too,” Rey said. “It’s urgent.”

“Oh! Well in that case, we’ll keep the light on for you,” Rose said, her bubbliness returning.

“That’s wonderful,” Rey said, genuine relief in her voice. “I missed all of you.”

“And we missed you!” Rey could practically see Rose beaming from across the galaxy. “Have a safe trip back. May the Force be with you!”

“Thanks, Rose. Force be with you too.”

Rose had heard the greeting in passing by a number of Resistance members, but had only taken to using it when she learned Rey was training to be a Jedi. Rey appreciated the sentiment, though given what little she truly knew about being a Jedi, she felt like a pretender whenever she heard it.

Ending the transmission, Rey prepared for the first of several jumps into hyperspace. These erratic jumps were meant to make the Resistance base harder to track, in case anyone was tailing her; now, of course, the routine scrambling felt futile, knowing that the First Order had located them regardless of precautions. At least she felt that the length of the first jump was sufficient for her to get some shut-eye. Despite using the Supreme Leader of the First Order as her only cushion, she had slept surprisingly well on the beach, with only a few notable breaks in her sleep cycles. However, a combination of the sedative gas Bazine had used the previous day; the energy expense required in dancing, fighting attackers, and escaping into Canto Bight; and her exhaustive use of the Force to constantly stay attuned to Ben left her more drained than normal, and she was in for a long flight.

As the blue streaks of starlight began to surround her on all sides, she rested her staff against the console, propped her feet up on the co-pilot’s chair, and began to slide down into a more comfortable sleeping position. However, she was jarred out of her doze by a sudden ache in her chest, a phantom pain so sharp that it almost sent her sprawling on the floor.

She felt her vision going blurry from the edges in, as if she were blacking out, and when she came-to again, the ship was still in hyperspace, but she was on her back on the floor staring at the flickering overhead lights of the skimmer’s ceiling-mounted controls.

She didn’t know what had happened, but she knew from the all-consuming nature of the passing agony what the cause had been.

Ben Solo was in distress.

 

The morning haze had cleared by the time Kylo Ren arrived at Shwa’rarth’s manor in the hills overlooking Canto Bight. He had returned to the house not through the neighborhoods beyond the city, but instead by following the likely path of the attackers as they had entered into the gardens and lead the assault on those fleeing on the balcony. He had wound his way through the side streets and hidden paths that would have been easy for a small militia to quietly navigate at night until he found himself in the vicinity of the house. Climbing up the rocky outcroppings beneath the garden would have been no problem for non-Force users working as a team or with proper gear; he, however, found scaling the small cliff face slightly difficult, given his exhaustion from the previous night. With some sleep, he likely would have made short work of it.

He knew the physical reality of exhaustion was only part of it; his body was used to operating on very limited amounts of rest, as he had been a fitful sleeper since birth. Concentrating on the Force for as long as he had in order to remain in communication with Rey, however, was more mentally draining than an entire day of training. Perhaps their parting had been more taxing than he realized. His mind lingered on Rey: the feel of her skin, the scent of her hair, the sound of her laugh, his name on her lips, and the comfort of her presence. His mind kept fighting to find its center as if he were a Padawan again.

He tried to tell himself it would become easier to stop thinking about her. He wasn’t sure if that were true.

Though the bodies had been cleared from the garden behind Shwa’rarth’s manor, Kylo could still see the evidence of the massacre around him.  Burn marks from errant blaster bolts marred the abundant beige stone statuary and the steps leading up to the balcony. Pools of blood in a variety of colors still glimmered thickly in the carefully landscaped flower beds. 

He did not want to guess how many party guests had been slaughtered once the attackers flooded the garden, trapping those who had fled the ballroom. The bigger question, he knew, was if there had been any other survivors.

He and Rey had been powerful enough to fight and to escape, but a small part of him almost felt guilty for the number of lives that had been lost. Kita’lis hadn’t been targeting him, Rey had explained as they escaped to the city the night before, but rather had used the presence of the Supreme Leader to stoke up anti-First Order sentiment that she could use to achieve her revenge against the society that had forced her into slavery.

The only way that he could have possibly stopped the massacre would have been to decline the invitation in the first place, but even that decision hadn’t entirely been his own, and Kita’lis likely would have staged some form of coup, anyway. 

Reaching out through the Force, he felt the First Order had already made planetfall and were scouring the building, likely for any sign of him, or anything that would serve as useful propaganda. One familiar presence filled him with sudden, unbridled irritation: General Hux.

A nearby fountain had been broken in the fray, leaving the water tainted red with blood but still, buffeted only by the light breeze rolling off the artificial sea. Kylo Ren gazed down at his red-hued reflection. He had almost forgotten that he had lost his mask in the ballroom, just when he needed it most; he could see the sorrow, the loss, the wanting in his eyes, raw and naked in the harsh daylight. He looked positively, disgustingly lovelorn. Starting at his reflection, he hardened his expression to something of the irritated, commanding leader he often pretended to be. He would need this mask to face down Hux, to disguise his pain, to obscure any notion of Lady Viré from his recollection of the previous night’s proceedings.

He stalked up the patio steps, past the landing where he and Rey had almost kissed, through the shattered remains of the grand ballroom windows, across the bloodstained dance floor, and to the assembly of First Order Stormtroopers and officers at the base of the stairs. Though many seemed shocked at his arrival, Armitage Hux, who was holding a familiar black object in his hands, seemed to have been anticipating his approach.

“Supreme Leader,” Hux said, dipping his head and assuming a posture of utmost fealty. “I see you lost this.”

He handed Kylo his half-melted helmet with such pride that the gesture almost felt patronizing. That was likely the intent.

“It was damaged in the attack. I had to remove it for my safety.” For the sake of the assembled underlings, Kylo assumed the most disinterested tone he could muster without the voice modulator. It was much harder than he thought it would be.

He took the helmet and looked at the ruined, twisted object. The damage was worse than he had anticipated, and the visor had been completely melted through, as well as most of the left half of the mask. The warped visage in his hands reminded him of the helmet of his grandfather, enshrined in a chamber outside of his quarters for the past several years. He realized the similarities lay not in the masks themselves, but in their destruction.    
  
“The tracker in your helmet was destroyed by the acid,” Hux continued stiffly. “That was how enabled us to understand the nature of the threat. The Stormtroopers assigned to your defense were eliminated soundly before we could analyze the situation, but with your belt tracker still active elsewhere in the manor, we were able to send a garrison to your location. There is a patrol in the city looking for you now.”

Kylo had forgotten completely about the tracker that was installed into the new mask, which had been commissioned to mark his ascension to Supreme Leader. It was lucky that it had been destroyed before he and Rey had made their escape; he couldn’t bring himself to imagine the alternative in this setting.

“Very astute, General,” Kylo said, refraining from pointing out the fact that all of his officers had to have known that he would not be wearing his belt for the gala. There was an entire section of a meeting devoted to it. He tried to compose his face so he did not reveal how stupid he believed Hux to be, but he was sure by now it was obvious. 

"We landed early this morning to find much of the cleanup already completed, though you were notably absent,” Hux said, a very factual way of probing. “We assumed by the number of dead rebels that you had survived the attack.”

“Indeed, I had. I found allies of the First Order in the city to lodge with during the night.” It was not entirely a truth, he knew, but he could still remember the sight of Rey’s head pressed against his chest lit only by the moonlight, as if she were right in front of him now, and he couldn't care less about the truth. She was no ally of the First Order, but she was his.

“Splendid,” Hux said, in a professional manner that indicated something was not particularly splendid, and he had hoped for Kylo’s death so as to avoid a lengthy coverup. “As you know, it was my desire to have sent a larger unit for protection…”

“Your instincts are duly noted, General, and we shall be better prepared the next time I make a public appearance,” Kylo said, beginning to take his leave of the assembled First Order personnel. 

“My lord, where are you–” Hux turned to follow him, protesting.

“I have several personal effects to retrieve,” Kylo replied dismissively. “When do you intend to depart?”

“Within the hour, my lord.” Hux took several long strides to try to keep up with Kylo, who was ascending the large, blood-stained staircase. “Several survivors are recovering in our custody, and we are preparing them for questioning.”

“Good. I will return in time.” Kylo left Hux standing alone without a glance back. 

He passed through the foyer where he had begun to confide his feelings for Rey through the memory of the Alderaanian braid customs. His left hand reflexively reached for the ribbon tied around his right wrist, running a shaking thumb over the strip of silk. Still there.

 

Her room looked mostly as it had when he had left her there late the previous afternoon. He didn’t know why he expected it to be different.

He peered into the closet. There were the dresses Bazine had picked for her. They had arrived in a simple crate, which the ‘troopers had carried to the room, completely unaware of its purpose. He had hung them up for her when time had allowed, right before Bazine arrived with Rey in tow. He could imagine her looking beautiful in most of them—the pink one was garish, but he supposed he wouldn’t have minded it on her.

But the dresses were not Rey. 

He walked over to the window, looking out over the craggy hills of Cantonica in the soft morning glow. She was not in the view of the strange, alien world, full of so much beauty and waste.

He looked back over to the vanity. Beige fabric wrappings had been neatly folded and set on the tabletop, and draped over the chair was a familiar black garment: the dressing robe Bazine had loaned her. 

He supposed Bazine might want it back, but it was not worth the risk. He would just throw in a few extra credits in his final payment to compensate her. 

He picked up the robe, holding it before him. Rey had seemed so small, so fragile in the garment, which engulfed her small frame. However, he knew what power coursed through her veins; he had felt it when she began slamming her fists against his chest in anger. Her hands themselves had been weak, but the anger behind it was powerful. He adored that raw strength in her that she so rarely used. He wished she knew what kind of power she had, if only she chose to unleash it.

He remembered the glimpse of her shoulders he had been gifted during that encounter, the surge of raw emotions flowing through her in the Force...he savored all of it, letting the fabric slip in a silent rush between his gloved fingers.

But for the small, pleasant memory the robe provided, it did not feel like her. 

He was almost ashamed that he had sought her out in the lavish bedroom. He had watched her leave the planet; what had he honestly expected to find?

Something to dull the ache, he thought. The absence of her was a tangible thing, a pain clutching at his chest, crushing him like a cruel fist.

He was not a stranger to pain, but agony like this was unfamiliar. It was not the exquisite stinging he had grown to crave from the Dark Side, but something far deadlier. 

He was desperate to rid himself of it.

He let the robe fall to the ground as he stormed from the room, heading into the quarters that were supposed to have been his for the night.

He had been covered in sweat the previous evening and had spent the night asleep outside, so the shower he took was not a luxury, but a necessity, at least until such time that another helmet could be procured. 

However, he removed his formal jacket and straight-legged trousers with some reluctance, hesitating to rid himself of the garments she had touched. As he turned the water on in the refresher and felt its warmth running over his hand, he couldn’t help but feel that he was washing off the last traces of Rey. He could feel her under his nails as he scrubbed himself clean. 

She was there, on his neck, fingers curling and uncurling in his hair as they kissed.

She was there, tracing the line of his scar down his collar bone.

Hers were the tender hands holding his face so dear, the enthusiastic palms running up his thigh, the trusting fingers, interweaving with his as a promise travelled between them. 

He was scrubbing her touch off of him, letting her memory wash down the drain.

Maybe this would cure him of his suffering. He knew, however, it wouldn’t, but he was desperate to try.

He had let her into his mind, and she had brought a sickening light with it. He could not let that light linger.

He knew this was a risk he was taking when he brought her back to him, let her into his thoughts again. It was a foolish trade. And for what?  _ The pretty little face of a junk scavenger playing princess. _

His hands passed over the wound on his left side. His knuckles curled instinctively. Supporting himself against the shower wall with his right arm, he jammed the side of his fist into the gnarled tangle of scars, feeling the old wound buckle under the force of his blow. He pulled it back again and again, letting the physical agony overwhelm his emotional pain. He could not feel blossoms of power surge through the Force this time, only the ache of loss, of longing, and the pain of the wound in his side.

He was weak. He reached out as he had the day before, but could not feel her in the next room, soothing his frayed nerves with her lightness, her acceptance. She was far away from him by now. 

Again, he slammed his fist. Again.

  
  
Kylo’s lightsaber was once again secure on his usual belt, no longer clinging on the improvised clip on his formal jacket, but in the glaring light of day, he felt naked without his mask, impotent. Distinctly and disgustingly human. He knew how to grab the saber off this belt, knew the heft of it around his waist. The normalcy was a slight comfort.

In the doorway, he stared back at the room, making certain there was nothing else he could want from the damned place. He did not care to keep the formal kit, as it was covered in mud and dust from his climb up the cliffside on top of the battle damage from the previous night and tainted by  _ her _ . He, of course, denied any sort of emotional attachment to the garments now, and would leave them on the bed to be discarded with the rest of the rubbish, once Shwa’rarth’s heirs finished picking the manor clean. Grabbing the holoprojector from the dresser where he had left it, he remembered one final item of importance: his private commlink, the only method he had to communicate with Bazine. 

Pulling the jacket from its place discarded on the dresser, he felt around in his pocket for the device. Though he could feel the shape of it, he found it difficult to fish out, his hand impeded. Frustrated, he yanked the entire contents of the pocket out onto the white bedspread.

Stark black against the white bed were Rey’s long gloves, forgotten during their fight on the balcony. 

He stepped back, as if they were venomous snakes. 

He had planned all the details of the ball as if she were coming with him, and had spared no detail. Everything else he had entrusted to Bazine. He decided not to drape her in gems or other gaudy baubles for the dance; those trifling things were false signs of prestige that Rey did not need, but had asked Bazine to purchase the circlet and two pairs of long gloves in white and black, having remembered her wearing arm wrappings since their first encounter. She had changed in their time apart, but he knew she might like the comfort of familiarity in this setting.

He had pulled the one glove off so delicately so they could communicate while he taught her to dance. She had gone into his mind, and understood him so thoroughly.

Though he wore his mask to assume a position of power, her entire identity had been her mask. The gown had been a convincing costume, but the black gloves had been the greatest barrier between her and the strange world around her. She had so much power in the small hands that she had hidden from the world.

Her gloves had come off for her to open her mind to him, and then later, to fight him. To use those vicious, delicate fingers to pull him apart, to tear him in two along the line she had already cleaved on his body.

After they had fought and reconciled, she had left them off. She knew her power, she practically glowed with it. She no longer required the mask as he did. Rey, the resplendent Jedi, had no need to hide her might. She knew her power, and had shown it proudly.

And he could not keep her. Could not tame her, own her. Love her.

He had promised himself to her the night before, standing in front of the shimmering sea. 

He had offered himself to her on the Supremacy. Offered her the whole Galaxy then, and it wasn’t enough. He could never give her what she wanted. 

He felt fire, rage licking at his face.

He would never be good enough for her. He would always be something she hated, too weak for the power that she carried.

The comfort he had sought in her was proof of his weakness. He was  _ pathetic. _

He slammed his fist into the dresser, letting it crack beneath his hand as he choked back a scream, a cry, a feral yell of despair that was clawing its way out of his throat.

_ He would never be enough for her. _

He could hear a few Stormtroopers coming down the hall to retrieve him.

Fighting back the heat rising in his cheeks and the angry tears that threatened to escape, he stormed out of the room without another look back.

 

It was easy to forget that the hallway he now stood in had been the first place he had looked upon Rey in almost a year, because now, the hall was full of the sound of whirring droids, beeping monitors, and the stench of death.

No longer a long, empty, elegant hallway, a temple to its own pointless grandeur, the corridor served as both a temporary hospital and morgue. Having recovered all the bodies scattered over the manor’s property, local police had dispatched a small army of droids that were still desperately trying to identify the remains and contact the families of the deceased in one side the hall. 

Shoved into the corner closest to the landing pad was a station with medical equipment, including temporary beds, vital monitors, hastily-erected privacy curtains, and various Bacta dispensers, though a quick glance at the small makeshift medical ward indicated that very little of it was still in use. Kylo wondered if that was because the survivors had been taken to a real medical facility in the city, or to the other side of the hall.

Hux approached him, likewise flanked by several Stormtroopers. “Supreme Leader, we have almost concluded our interviews of the survivors. Those we revived and questioned seem to have little memory of the attack prior to the blasters being fired, but we are keeping their identities on file in case the need for further elucidation arises.”

As the General presented him with a datapad displaying this information, Kylo realized that no further questioning would likely be needed; looking at all the corpses dressed in their wasted finery, he remembered how easy it had been to tell who had been a target and who were the attackers, though there were fewer bodies of the latter at the other side of the hall.

Glancing down at the datapad, he noticed the name and contact information for Dwane Soruta. So one of the vile brothers had survived. A pity for the galaxy. And listed at the very bottom...

“The hostess,” Kylo said. “Where is she?”

“She awoke shortly after you arrived, my lord, and has been genuinely responsive to our questioning. She–”

“Bring her to me,” Kylo said, his voice suddenly cold.

Hux opened and closed his mouth a few times as questions formed and reformed themselves on his tongue.

He eventually stammered, “My lord, she’s a new widow of the–”

“Now,” Kylo said, casting a withering glare at the redhead.

“Right away, my lord,” Hux said, barely concealing the sneer forming on his mouth.

Hux sent two of his ‘troopers to one of the curtained off beds, and in a moment, they returned, supporting a weakened Kita’lis, still wearing the golden gown from the night before, but with bloodied bandages on her head and neck.

Kylo took several steps towards her. 

Leaning heavily on the white armored ‘troopers, Kita’lis stood to meet the Supreme Leader’s gaze.

“Kylo Ren,” she said slowly, dreamily, a tired smirk playing on her mouth. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“You know exactly why,” he hissed, his body reflexively assuming a feral stance. “Why did you use me as bait for your revenge?”

Dazed, she cocked her head at him. “Now I get it.”

He swallowed a lump of anger in his throat, but didn’t respond. Kita’lis took a small step closer to him. 

“You really are something under that mask,” she said. “No wonder she chose you.”

Kitalis’s brows furrowed, and she took a look around the room, eyes dancing from Kylo to Hux and the ‘troopers milling about.

“But she’s not here, is she? She didn’t stay with you.” She drew herself up taller, as anger began roiling in Kylo’s stomach. A real grin broke out, splitting her face in two. “I guess she really couldn’t stand you, much less love you, pretty monster or not.” 

Her voice dropped to a manic whisper. “Where’d she go, Ren? Where’s Lady–”

She did not get to finish her question, because before she could speak the name of the Naboo Handmaiden, Kylo Ren screamed, drew his lightsaber, ignited it, and struck her, cleaving her in two with a swift arc from her left shoulder to right hip. He barely witnessed himself making the killing blow; his vision had been blackened, a tunnel of anger. In his chest was no longer the beating, emotional heart of a human man, but a black hole of rage, of hatred, of darkness strong and unyielding that it threatened to destroy him from the inside. 

He stood panting as the pieces of her body collapsed to the floor, a mocking smirk still resting on her lips.

“Supreme Leader!” Hux ran to stand beside Kylo Ren, keeping his body out of reach  of the red, crackling blade. “We weren’t finished with her! How could you–”

“She instigated the attack,” Kylo said, his throat raw, his devoid of emotion. “She financed the insurgency that lead to last night’s massacre. She confessed to it.”

“How could you have known...” Hux shouted hysterically, but it only took one look of silent rage from the Supreme Leader before he trailed off. He did not know much about the strange wizardry that Kylo Ren commanded, but he had learned to be wary of it.

He did not trust Kylo Ren, but he knew the damage was done. This was not the time to challenge him.

Kylo deactivated his lightsaber and returned it to his belt. 

“Have the droids finish their inventory of the deceased and get them moved. I want this place burned to the ground.”

“My lord?” Hux asked.

“Do as I say,” he said, his voice eerie in its emotionlessness. “Nothing of this structure is to be left standing. I want the entire galaxy to know what happens when you threaten the Supreme Leader. I want it done within the hour.”

Leaving the Hux, the Stormtroopers, and the body of Kita’lis behind, he stormed off toward the landing pad. 

“I will be waiting on the ship until then,” he called over his shoulder.

In an hour, the aggravated droids had managed to transport all the bodies into methodical lines on the landing pad to await transport to another facility for processing just as a group of Flametroopers descended on the building. 

The beautiful ballroom would burn, as would the gardens, the bedrooms, the sitting room where Ben Solo had taught Rey to dance, the foyer where he began to tell her his feelings, the small passage in which they had made their escape. His kit, her gloves. Everything that had been so beautiful in the haze of moonlight would be immolated in a cleansing fire.

As the sun peaked in the sky, the First Order command shuttle took off.

For just a moment as the ship rose up into the atmosphere, Kylo Ren stared out the viewport at the burning manor beneath him to survey the angry red blaze consuming the house before he turned his back and strode away.

 

“And you believe this source is credible?” the General asked for what was likely the eighth time since Rey’s skimmer touched down on Takodana.

“Yes, absolutely,” Rey said. 

That, at least, was true, despite the litany of lies she had practiced between naps on the return flight to the Resistance base. She needed the General to believe her, to get her friends off this rock. She had woven an epic but vague tale of Resistance-sympathizing Bith codebreakers who had been hacking into First Order comms when they volunteered to help her get the parts necessary to repair her ship. So far, it seemed her story was working.

She was uncomfortable with how good she had become at lying in such a short time.

“Fascinating,” Leia said, staring ahead of her out into the forest that rose up around them. Though the General strolled along the slowly, thoughtfully, Rey felt some hesitation in the older woman. She seemed to ponder everything Rey said deeply before replying, which made her nervous. She knew better than to use her abilities to pry, but she felt into the Force around her, just for the briefest second. Leia’s presence was radiant, as always, but streaked with a sort of unfamiliar sorrow. Rey knew she shouldn’t jeopardize her relationship with Leia, but she had to know what the General was thinking. For the briefest second, as the two women walked side by side in the Resistance base, Rey listened carefully for the whispers in the Force. With few Resistance personnel besides the night staff awake at this late hour, it was almost too easy for Rey to brush into the chaotic echoes of thought surrounding the General.

_ I’m imagining it _

_ Codebreakers on Bith, do we really have that many allies _

_ It can’t be him _

_ Can’t go to Tatooine, too obvious _

_ Why do I feel him when I’m near her? _

_ Two weeks to move us  _

__ _Ben._

It took all of Rey’s practiced composure not to blanch at what she heard. Did Leia sense Ben on her? Was she so thoroughly marked by him that even Leia could feel him on her? Was it from their kisses, their bodies pressed together through the night, the dancing? Was it their connected minds or the shared memories? How did she sense him? Her grip tightened on her staff.

The General turned to look at her suddenly. 

Rey almost jumped. She was certain she had been caught abusing the Force. _ Kriff. _ Of course Leia would have felt her nosing around; she’s Luke’s sister, after all.

“We’re not abandoning this base.”

“WHAT?” Rey’s squawked response, filled with relief and confusion in equal measures, came off as too emphatically shocked in the still night, and the General seemed to have been taken completely off-guard by her reaction, but Leia, ever composed, continued.

“I will have to discuss this with the rest of the command team, of course, but I believe that if the First Order is truly tracking our position to this base, then we should keep it. Set a trap for them. We will, of course, move our main operations off-world, but...” Leia trailed off, gesturing around. “I’ll let Commander Dameron figure out the rest. He’s good with blowing things up.”

Rey’s heart leapt. “You mean we’re going to fight?”

Leia laughed, and for a moment Rey saw the beautiful young woman from the borrowed memories again. “The Resistance, fight? What a concept!”

Rey felt the redness flooding her cheeks. “I meant that we’re going to beat them at their own game.”

Leia grinned devilishly. “That’s the plan. If your source is as certain as you are, then we can start tracking them back. If we can time it right and spare the manpower, this could be a boon for us. We’ll work on setting up strike team to plan and an evacuation team to establish a new command center on a secondary base and...I’ll stop boring you with all of this.”

“What?” Rey said, her eyes scanning Leia’s face. The General had a slight but distinctly Han-like smirk on her mouth.

“I’m just babbling at this point. You’re tired. You’ve been out and about for weeks. Your friends have been up waiting for you since you took off,” she said. “We’ll have plenty of time to work out the finer points soon.” Leia looked over her shoulder at the door behind her. “Go on. You’ve earned it.”

Rey beamed with pride, thanked the General, and quickly bolted through the doors and down the brightly-lit corridor, partially out of excitement, but mostly out of warring desires to avoid any further prying, or thinking of Ben any longer than she had to. 

The ache of their parting had been dulled by her single-minded focus on returning to the base on Takodana and selling the Resistance on her discovery, but as soon as she told the General, she felt his absence as an eerie silence, a chasm within her that briefly slowed her steps.

Of course, all this was quickly forgotten when she found Finn, Poe, and Rose sitting in the crew lounge waiting for her. Finn and Poe took turns lifting her up in large hugs, while Rose almost knocked her over with a flying leap into her arms. Rather than secluding themselves in dormitories, the group had gathered blankets and pillows and pooled them in a heap on the floor to welcome their friend when she got out of her meeting.

“The lost Jedi has returned!” Finn shouted in delight before being shushed by his friends. Poe grappled him in mock chokehold as punishment while the girls looked on and laughed, egging them on.

When the newness of their company had worn off, Rey told them that she had great news to report about her recon missions throughout the galaxy and had several good leads on untouched kyber crystal mines, and yet despite the smile that had blossomed on her face, her heart ached. She couldn’t tell them all the truth about what had happened to her on Canto Bight. She knew Rose and Finn would have been shocked by the massacre in Shwa’rarth’s mansion, if not a little bit supportive of the continued destruction of the hedonistic city, but all of this had to remain concealed under a myriad of fictions, lest she reveal that she had been in the presence of the Supreme Leader with a blaster in her hand, and let him live. 

It was only when she was laughing at a joke Finn made, delirious with joy and exhaustion, that she realized that Ben had never outright stated what planet the Resistance base was on. 

The kidnapping, the ball, the offer, it all could have been a giant ruse, and she had been too dazed by the gas and the atmosphere at the time to realize it.

Well, if General Organa’s plan worked, she would certainly find out. 

The group laughed and swapped stories for over an hour before shuffling off to bed sometime before dawn, Finn stealing one more hug from Rey before retreating to his dormitory. Rey hadn’t even had time to unload her small pack since disembarking, and upon entering the little room she used between flights, turned on the light and bolted the door.

Though many Resistance crew were given shared spaces, because of her Jedi training, they gave her a small room to herself. In it, she stowed the ancient texts from Ahch-To and various other Jedi totems she had collected in her travels: carvings of the Jedi symbol, Holocrons that were allegedly rescued (stolen) from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Opening the trunk where she stashed her mementos, she pulled all of these things out to make room at the bottom.

When Bazine had welcomed her on board her ship, she presented Rey with her regular attire, freshly cleaned and pressed, and offered her another trip to the refresher.

“Really, it was nothing,” Bazine said, waving off Rey’s profuse thanks. “But seriously, do take that shower.”

As Rey stripped off the dirty, mangled remains of what had been the nicest garment she had ever worn, she felt a twinge of sorrow. It had been fun to be a lady for one night, to wear a beautiful dress and dance, but it had been too much pressure to behave in the prescribed manner, a puppet for the entertainment of the cruelest people in the Galaxy. However, if Ben were to ask her to dance again…

She thought of their bodies pressed together in a slow, sleepy whirl under the lanterns of the cantina, his hands stroking lazy circles on her waist and back, the waves striking their own rhythm as they beat against the nearby shore.

Part of her wanted to run to Bazine and throw her fists at the willowy bounty hunter until she returned Rey to Canto Bight, back into Ben’s arms.

That couldn’t happen, she knew, stepping out of the dress and under the warm, running water. Not yet, anyway.

She kept looking to the collapsed gown as she rinsed the sand and sweat and, sadly, the gentle caress of Ben’s strong hands off of her. Maybe one day she would get to wear something so elegant again, but for the sake of protecting the Resistance, she would have to leave it here with Bazine.

She looked to the hanger outside of the shower door. Ben’s black and crimson cloak.

That, she realized, she could keep.

She folded and tucked it in her pack just before preparing to land on Takodana, and slipped her essential gear over top of it. Having to use her spare chest wrappings meant she had extra space in her satchel, though General Organa had taken no notice of what Rey had or hadn’t brought back with her once the women exchanged news. The General had told her of a new contact that might hold more Jedi secrets; Rey had told her how to save the Resistance.

She hoped the knowledge had earned her enough good will for a while, so she could feel less guilty about her fraternization with the enemy. 

She slid the fabric to the bottom of the chest, tucking the silver pin underneath. She sighed. She almost felt like she could still smell the sweet air rolling off the sea and Ben’s own metallic scent on the garment. She was certain that even if another Resistance member should find the cape, no one would decipher its origin. Her secret — hers and Ben’s secret — was safe. Noticing a frayed end sticking up, she ripped off a small scrap of the red lining that had been damaged in the firefight in the ballroom. She closed her eyes, feeling the silky fabric in her hands. It reminded her of the skin behind his neck, soft beneath his helmet and his hair. Their promises to each other echoing in her head, she slid the leather cuff off her left arm, wrapped the scrap of fabric around her wrist, and tied it tight, tucking the spare ends in under the worn hide.

Now she would be able to keep part of him with her, no matter what, she thought, her heart brimming with delight. She would have part of him to keep.

 

Certain that he had scrubbed away any details that might indicate file tampering, Kylo logged out of the First Order surveillance mainframe. 

He was done. He had fulfilled his end of the bargain.

The deed finished, he turned the screen off and pushed the datapad away.

Tears fell in silent rivulets down his face. 

He knew it was, according to the time standard on the dreadnought, very late, but he was not concerned about lost sleep. He was tormenting himself awake, anyway. He was unraveling. 

For the first time in ages, he felt a thick, echoing silence in the Force.

The bond was connecting his and Rey’s minds. He slammed his eyes shut.

_ Not now _ , he prayed to the uncaring Force.  _ Please, I can’t _ .

When he opened his eyes again, she was sitting before him.

 

Rey was exhausted. She knew she needed to sleep, but after slipping her treasures back on top of the cape, she had to see his face one last time.

Sneaking out of the base, she stole away into a small clearing that gave her an unobstructed view of the sky. The first rays of dawn would appear soon, but the last few stars of the night were visible overhead.

_ I am yours, Rey, _ he had said. _ I will be yours wherever you go. If you feel alone, just look to the stars. You’ll find me. _

Sitting on the damp, dewy ground she looked out into the vastness overhead, and thought once more about the night before, Ben’s arms wrapped around her as she looked off into the sea.

She called out for him in the Force, and the familiar hum of their connection began to consume her, and in seconds, she could see Ben Solo, clad in his usual black tunic, standing before her.

His eyes were closed at first, and his face was turned away from her, but slowly he shifted to look at her.

His eyes, so dark and warm the last time she had seen him, were now red and cold, angry almost. His posture was tense, nervous, as if he was going to bolt.

She stood quickly. “Ben?” she called softly into the night.

Ben froze, a quiet venom crossing his face. Rey tried to approach him, but he raised his arm and turned his body defensively.

“Ben?” she cried again, softer. She reached out a hand tentatively. “Beloved, please...”

He froze again, then drew up to his fullest, towering height, and stared down at her, shaking his head, the gesture devoid of emotion.

“No.” 

The cold syllable seemed to fill the space in the Force between them and echoed in the forest around her. She tried to lunge for him, to hold him in place, but when she reached out her hand again, the connection had ended, and she was standing alone in the forest, clutching at the empty air. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Our journey is at an end for now. If you wish to view the full end note and acknowledgements, you can view it on my tumblr here: https://tinyurl.com/ycqdprgc
> 
> There is still more to come.
> 
> If we shadows have offended,  
> Read but this, and all is mended:  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/14423862  
> I wrote a small bonus scene, set between chapters in the story. If you are into being tantalized by space virgins, you're in luck.
> 
> I'm still putting some story-related goodies up on kill-these-lights.tumblr.com, including sequel updates.
> 
>  
> 
> SEQUEL UPDATE 5/11/18 - It's coming along slowly.
> 
> UPDATE 6/17 - it's coming along faster now, but out of sequence. I hope to have a preview chapter posted by next week. I said July, dammit, so I am going to try to make it, but Sighs of Fire is much longer than CMWIA.
> 
> UPDATE 6/28 - SIGHS of FIRE IS LIVE. CHECK IT OUT.


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